Brain Freeze
by inukagome15
Summary: Sequel to "An Alternative State of Mentality". Tony wouldn't change a thing. Honestly. He might've gotten shot and almost killed, but it was all good. At least, until he gets kidnapped. Again. Maybe he should put up a sign saying he's no damsel, but that would belie the truth because right now? Right now he's completely alone, and it's so cold…
1. Part I

**So, this is it... Or _mostly_ it. But this IS the last BIG part of the series. Anything else added to this series won't be as large or as plotty. It's been a blast writing this, and I'm forever grateful for all the support I've received ever since filling that initial prompt. Before posting this, I also posted The Dating Game, that dating fic I promised you guys ages and ages ago.  
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**This story is my Big Bang for the year, and art is by the fantastic _digitalwave_. Working with her was an absolute pleasure, and her art has really captured the majesty and magnificence of the scenes she chose to illustrate. So go check it out! Link's on my profile if the one in here doesn't work.**

digitalwave dot livejournal dot com slash 571754 dot html

**This story would not be what it is without the work of _ellex42_. She helped me a great deal with smoothing out passages I had difficulties writing and making sure that some of the logistics made sense and weren't too far in the realm of whacky. And physics. And quantum science. So, yes, thank you, _ellex42_!**

**I would like to thank the mods for the fantastic work they've put into running this challenge. It's a ton of work to organize an event like this, and it's been an absolute blast.**

**It's All in the Mind: **Tony is 100% normal. Tony is not a mutant. Tony is Iron Man. Tony is an Avenger. Tony...is just fooling himself.**  
**

**Telekinesis 101 (Or A Guide to Readjusting Perceptions): **Tony is a mutant. Tony is Iron Man. Tony is an Avenger. Tony…has some unresolved issues. Namely, the problem called Steve. Or maybe his overactive brain. Pick either.**  
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**Telekinesis for Dummies:** Tony is not an idiot. Tony built the arc reactor in a cave with a box of scraps. Tony built Iron Man with cannibalized weapons. Tony is a bona fide genius. Tony…can admit that even geniuses need help, especially when it comes from the X-Men.

**A State of Mental Extremes**: Tony is protective of his own. The Avengers are off limits to Fury and his lackeys. But maybe he should be more concerned with his own safety. Oops.

**An Alternative State of Mentality**: Tony Stark does not have time for this junk. Someone outed his secret to the public. No, not the one where he's dating Steve. Yes, the one where he's a mutant. Yes, he's mad. Yes, his life sucks. What else is new? Oh, hi, Extremis.

**Brain Freeze: **Tony wouldn't change a thing. Honestly. He might've gotten shot and almost killed, but it was all good. At least, until he gets kidnapped. Again. Maybe he should put up a sign saying he's no damsel, but that would belie the truth because right now? Right now he's completely alone, and it's so cold…

**What Remains the Same:** Set during It's All in the Mind and Telekinesis 101 (Or A Guide to Readjusting Perceptions). "The Talk" hasn't changed much over the years, which is probably why Steve should have realized what was coming when he began to surreptitiously date Tony.

**The Dating Game:** Set during It's All in the Mind and A State of Mental Extremes. Five times Tony didn't know he was out on a date, and the one time he knew exactly what was going on.

* * *

**Brain Freeze**

**Part I**

* * *

Maybe he'd jumped the gun a little by saying he wouldn't change anything if it landed him right where he was (which was with Steve, thank you very much), because where he was right now he absolutely hated. He'd gladly turn back the clock a couple months if it meant _not_ being here.

And where "here" was he wasn't entirely certain. It was cold, it was dark, and the natives weren't friendly. It might've been Antarctica, but the polar bears he'd seen here weren't exactly the cute and cuddly type. (Or was it the Arctic with polar bears and the Antarctic with penguins?) Suffice it to say that he was cold, tired, and just _pissed_. He wanted to go _home_. Home with Steve. Home with Pepper, Rhodey, JARVIS, Dummy, Peggy, Spike, Butterfingers, You, Bruce, Clint, Natasha, Thor, and _Steve_.

Stumbling to his knees in the deep snow, he blinked blearily into the distance, unable to see much given the blizzard that was howling in his sensors and blurring his visor with snow. Pain from a fierce headache pounded through his skull.

In the distance he heard a fierce roar, Extremis quickly feeding him the data for how far away it was and the current speed it was traveling.

Maybe it'd be a polar bear this time.

* * *

It was the middle of the night, and Tony was bored. Or maybe not bored exactly because he had Clint watching him like a hawk (pun intended), but he'd been lying here for the past two weeks plus four days, just itching to get out. And considering how much he'd already slept, he was too full of energy to sleep more.

Why wasn't he in his workshop? Oh right… Because he'd been _shot_. Not that it was anything to joke about considering how Steve continued to hover over him whenever the slightest wince crossed his face (he'd hit his hand against the railing; not exactly a deadly injury) and that the Avengers, sans Thor, were camping out in his hospital room. It was kind of weird if also comforting.

As of right now, Steve had been forced onto the couch for at least six hours of sleep, as he'd apparently been getting by on cat naps for the last two weeks. Even Tony waking up from a healing coma four days ago hadn't done much to quell his worries until Bruce and Rhodey had ganged up on him. Now Rhodey was stretched out on the floor by the couch, and Bruce's head was pillowed on his jacket as he slept by Rhodey. Natasha had left several hours ago, leaving Clint behind to watch over Tony.

Or talk his ear out in a low whisper as he rambled about the god-awful food, force feeding Steve, Logan being an ass, Fury popping in to be threatening, Coulson subtly threatening the nurses…

Tony was about ready to doze off just listening to him ramble when Clint took a breath and said, "I kept offering to kiss you and see if that did the trick."

Tony's eyes snapped up to Clint's darkly amused face, though his eyes were serious. "I accept coupons," he whispered for the first time since Steve had gone to sleep.

Clint snorted. "You'll give those to Hulk and tell him to lay one on me."

Tony flashed a smile. "You know me so well."

"And since I actually _have_ a sense of self-preservation, I'm not doing it." Clint leaned back in his chair, imperiously folding his arms.

"And I don't?"

Clint pretended to think about that for a moment. "Eh…no. Anyone who walks up to Hulk after he's just torn apart a giant octopus and offers him a high five has no sense of self-preservation at all. And let's not forget that time you threw Steve into him with no warning."

Tony's eyes darkened at the memory. "It was the first option on my list."

"What was number two?"

Tony's grin was dark. "Dumping him on a roof. Three was clocking him over the head with his shield. One was the fastest."

Clint winced. "You don't play around, do you?"

"No. And neither do you."

"I prank people," Clint pointed out, glancing up at where Peter was sleeping in his web by the ceiling.

"Your pranks are juvenile."

"Says the man who colored my arrows pink with heart-shaped tips."

"It was _Valentine's Day_," Tony said, affronted. "Should I have made them purple?"

"I like purple," Clint said. "I'd've liked a purple uniform, but Coulson wanted black. We compromised."

Tony couldn't stop the smile from flashing across his face at the obvious fondness in Clint's voice. Evidently, sometime over the last two weeks Clint had made peace with what Coulson had done. His eyes drifted over to Steve's slumbering form, the smile slipping off his face as he watched him breathe.

Clint's quiet voice had Tony snapping his eyes back to him; the archer was still looking at Steve, having evidently followed Tony's gaze. "He went kind of nuts."

"What?"

"The last couple months," Clint repeated, looking back at Tony, "he went kind of nuts. He wasn't really sleeping. Or eating." He sighed. "It was worse these last two weeks."

Tony said nothing, unsure of what he _could_ say that wouldn't trivialize what the others had gone through these last months. He just kept his eyes fixed on Steve, wondering when it would all fall down around his ears again. They hadn't fixed everything, not by a long shot. Lack of privacy was one deterrent, and Tony dreaded the day when they'd be able to talk.

When had he begun to actually _consider_ communication without someone else prompting him?

"Did you know Spider-Man's been stuck in that costume for the last two weeks?" Clint said suddenly, breaking Tony out of his thoughts.

Tony blinked. "You're kidding."

"Nope." Clint grinned cheerfully. "He doesn't really complain, but when he does it's about how hot it gets with the mask. I offered him a paper bag"—he held up a brown bag with two circular holes cut into it—"but he declined."

"He doesn't have to be here," Tony said, looking up at where Peter was snoozing in his web.

"Newsflash, Tony: None of us _have_ to be here. We _want_ to be here."

Clint dropped the paper bag/mask on the bed. "And, of course, Steve would probably kick us off the team if we'd rather play video games than hang out in a room with machines that are beeping nonstop."

"Annoying," Tony conceded, grateful that the machines had been cleared out by the second day after he kept turning them off in irritation. He'd received a lot of glares for that from the medical personnel, but he hadn't really cared.

"But he hasn't been here nonstop," Clint added. "Keeps going out to deal with burglars."

"Burglars?"

"Same as before," Clint said, shrugging. "It was what he got famous for, aside from the Lizard."

"Eurgh." Tony couldn't imagine taking care of _burglars_.

"We can't all be billionaires taking out illegal weapons caches halfway around the world."

"Touché."

"How's it going on that front anyway?" Clint asked casually.

Tony shrugged, leaning back into his pillow to look up at the very bland ceiling. "Been quiet. Fighting's still going on, but not with my stuff."

Clint made a noncommittal sound and reclined in his chair, head tilted back to also observe the ceiling.

Frankly, Tony was sick of it (the ceiling, not Clint, just in case there was any doubt as to what he was sick of). "I'm checking out tomorrow."

There was a snort of laughter from Clint, which he quickly stifled as he checked to make sure no one had been disturbed. Satisfied, he whispered, "You're going to be released tomorrow anyway."

Tony stared at him. "Why's no one telling me anything?"

"Because we all know you'd jump the boat a day in advance if you knew when you were going to be officially released." Clint grinned. "So we kept quiet."

Tony huffed, but gave it up as a lost cause, just rolling his eyes to show what he thought of it. "Steve told me you caught the shooter," he said to change the subject.

"Logan sniffed him out," Clint said, eyes shuttering at the memory. "I'd never seen him so pissed before. Kept barking at me to shut up, even though he was following _me_."

"You know why he did it?"

"We're gonna be briefed on that," Clint said. "It's why Nat's not here. After you're checked out we're heading to the Helicarrier. Steve's not happy with it, but that's what we're doing."

Tony turned his head to the side, eyes sweeping up Clint's too relaxed form. "You guys weren't too hard on him these last few months, were you?"

"Me?" Clint cocked his head to the side, an innocent expression on his face. "I told you, man, I'm Switzerland."

"Uh-huh." Tony looked over at Steve, viewing the stress lines around his fiancé's eyes in a different light now. "It wasn't his fault, you know."

"Yeah, and it wasn't yours either," Clint said, echoing what Bruce had told him.

"It was stupid."

It hadn't felt so stupid while Tony was going through it. He'd made mistakes, but he wasn't actually sorry for them because they'd gotten the job done. He would apologize, though, if only because his experience with Pepper had told him that when in doubt, apologize first. He could keep his opinions to himself, even if it grated against every bone in his body to keep his mouth shut like that.

"But, you know," Clint continued, getting Tony's attention, "we do stupid things. It's in the job description."

"Our stupid mistakes are what blow the world up."

"But they haven't, Dumbledore," Clint pointed out, satisfied. "We're still spinning, and you got your shit together, so I figure we're good."

Tony licked his lips, mouth dry. "What about the next time it happens?"

Clint looked at him, eyebrow cocked. "Will it?"

Tony thought about the last few months of agony and uncertainty, Rhodey and Pepper being the only things holding him back from flinging himself over the edge; he thought about Steve's broken voice as he said he couldn't do it anymore, about power coursing through his body as he blew a man's head off, about Killian saying it was _in his genes_, about a courthouse and a possible assassination, and he _knew_.

"No," he said, "probably not."

"Then it won't," Clint said simply, as if that was that.

If only things were that simple. He had a habit of screwing things up even when the going was good, and he could only hope that it wouldn't happen again.

If only because Rhodey had said he wouldn't be held responsible for his actions next time Tony did something epically stupid.

* * *

By the time Tony checked out the next day, Natasha had brought him his favorite pair of jeans, T-shirt, hoodie, and sneakers. He wondered for a short moment where she'd gotten the clothes since they'd been in his closet, but a sharp look from her had him keeping his mouth firmly shut as he changed out of the hospital gown. She'd probably gone rooting around his closet. He didn't know what was more disconcerting: that she knew what his favorite clothes were or that she felt comfortable enough to go in his closet and find those clothes.

Maybe it was JARVIS…

In any case, Tony ended up on a Quinjet heading to the Helicarrier practically immediately after checking out. Steve had looked disapproving, but hadn't said anything. He didn't let go of Tony's hand, though, even moving to wrap an arm around Tony's shoulders once they were sitting.

Tony didn't really complain about it (nor did he _want_ to) because the last couple months had been bad enough without him creating a fuss when there was no need for one. Everyone in S.H.I.E.L.D. knew they were together, but it still unnerved Tony to reveal such an obvious weakness like needing to be hugged by his partner.

But since he was Tony Stark, it was easy enough to plaster a blank look on his face that didn't give anything away. He wanted to break the silence with some sort of chatter, but it was uncomfortable enough that he didn't try. Starting up a conversation when S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were in hearing distance was not what he wanted.

When they landed on the Helicarrier, they were swept away to a very private conference room that had a large screen taking up one wall. A look from Fury had Tony shutting off all the surveillance devices as Hill and Coulson walked in, closed the door, and took seats by Fury.

Fury remained standing, hands clasped behind his back. Tony took the seat on the opposite side of Fury, Steve sitting on his right and Bruce on his left. Clint and Natasha sat next to each other, and Peter shifted uncomfortably in his seat next to Bruce. Rhodey had gone earlier that morning to confer with the military about his extended leave of absence. Tony missed his reassuring presence; they hadn't exactly been separated a lot the last few months.

"Now," Fury began slowly, dark eye scanning over each Avenger, "if we're all ready?"

Tony bit back the response he wanted to make (something along the lines of "I was _born_ ready, baby") in favor of quirking his eyebrows.

Fury's mouth twisted slightly, possibly because he could guess what Tony wanted to say. "I don't think I need to go over what happened over the last several months, but I will say that the agent responsible for attempting to assassinate Stark is in custody."

Tony was unable to resist asking, "It was A.I.M., right?"

"Surprisingly," Fury said, "no."

"He was wearing an A.I.M. uniform," Clint pointed out.

"Further investigation has revealed that to be fake; he was a HYDRA operative."

"Aren't the two organizations linked?" Bruce asked.

"Usually not that closely." Fury crossed his arms. "When HYDRA went off the map after the Captain's attack in nineteen-forty-five, A.I.M. was what filled the power vacuum several years later. We know now that HYDRA had simply been operating in secret since then. Red Skull wasn't the only leader the organization had."

"Who?" Steve's tone was sharp.

"She calls herself Madame Hydra," Hill said. "She's a shadow in the underbelly of the intelligence community. We haven't been very successful in getting much information on her identity."

"What a surprise," Tony said.

Fury glared at Tony for several seconds before saying, "In any case, we don't have much information on her goals. They did kidnap you last year, but you blew up their compound. We think that stalled them, but they've since recovered."

"Why try to kill Tony?" Bruce asked. "They've only been trying to capture, not kill. What changed?"

"SHRA," Fury said.

"I think they've realized that it's a bit dangerous to go after a man who's repeatedly told them no," Coulson said mildly.

"That's never stopped them before," Clint pointed out.

"They're not done," Hill said. She tapped a spot on the table and the wall behind Fury lit up with a map focusing on Russia.

"HYDRA's base of operations has moved," Fury said. "As best as we can tell, they're somewhere in northeast Russia. Unfortunately, something seems to be blocking our best surveillance tech from getting more information."

Natasha had stiffened slightly at this new information.

"What do you want us to do with this?" Steve asked.

"Nothing for now." Fury gave a brief smile. "Our contract specifies that we keep you informed on any relevant information that threatens national security, while you do the same."

"Are they staying in Russia?" Peter ventured to ask.

"For now." Coulson smiled genially at the kid.

"Then why are you telling us this?" Bruce asked. "Russia doesn't feel comfortable having us on their turf, so we can't exactly go over and investigate."

"There's something else," Hill admitted. She tapped the table again, and the map changed to a dark picture of a snowy street. The quality was horrible, but by squinting Tony could make out the figure that the camera had focused in on; he was dressed in all black, and the light was glinting off of something that looked like a gun.

Natasha didn't move, but Clint narrowed his eyes. Neither of them said anything.

Fury observed Natasha for a moment before he scanned the rest of the occupants of the table and said, "Avengers, this is the Winter Soldier, HYDRA's best assassin."

"For a super villain," Peter said, "that's a surprisingly creative name."

Hill did not seem amused at Peter's wit. "He's been active on and off for the past sixty years in some capacity. He's a sniper, never misses his mark." The image on the screen changed to a hand drawn picture of a young man with dark hair and a black mask covering the lower half of his face; his eyes were cold. "S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't have much information on him beyond his capabilities and that he first went active in 1950."

"He's been active for the last six decades," Bruce said. "You're telling me that you don't have _anything_ on him? You told me I never went off the radar; how is it you can't keep track of a single sniper?"

"You were alone," Natasha said suddenly, grabbing everyone's attention. "Despite your genius, you were still one man. The Winter Soldier has the entire HYDRA organization at his back."

"S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't omniscient despite the image we promote," Coulson said, a small smile twisting at his lips as he flicked his eyes over to Tony. "Black Widow was an unknown agent until we sent Hawkeye in. She didn't come up on our radar until some particularly high profile assassinations occurred."

So Tony was usually an ass anyway, but even he couldn't resist saying, "That seems rather negligent of S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Believe or not, Stark," Fury said, glaring at him with that one eye of his, "we didn't always have the technology we do today. There were a lot of things that went on underneath our noses that we didn't know about."

"Suddenly, I don't feel so safe," Peter said.

Tony opened his mouth, about to say something on the merits of having JARVIS watch over everything, when Natasha spoke, her voice quiet. "We met each other in the Red Room."

"Nat…" Clint's voice was a mere murmur.

Natasha shook her head once, then wet her bottom lip and continued, staring straight ahead. "It was in Russia – a training program for people like me. Assassins." Her eyes flickered over to Bruce. "We had no names, no identity. We were weapons to be used. Having an identity beyond that would only breed weakness."

Her eyes dropped to the table. "Still…we became…acquaintances." The weight the word was given was the same as if she had said "friends." "He told me his name was James. I never learned more than that. He never stayed long." She exhaled slowly and lifted her eyes again. "The only defining feature he had was his cybernetic left arm. It was continually being updated as time passed and technology improved."

Fury didn't sigh or do anything else that would show he was at all sympathetic, but Tony would swear that his one visible eye softened just the tiniest bit. Then again, he could just be delusional considering that this was _the_ spy they were talking about.

"Black Widow is the only agent in the whole of S.H.I.E.L.D. who has ever been in contact with the Winter Soldier and is actually alive," Fury said. "All others have unfortunately expired."

"Do you mean 'expired' as in 'they met their expiration date' or 'expired' as in 'they retired'?" Peter asked.

Fury didn't bother gracing that with an answer. "There was an assassination attempt on Putin not forty-eight hours ago. There were no eyewitness, but cameras do place a man meeting the Winter Soldier's general physical description at the scene."

"You said he doesn't miss," Steve said.

"He doesn't." Coulson's tone was even.

"It's a message," Hill said. "The Winter Soldier has never missed a mark since he first appeared. That he does so now at this point means there's something they want to tell us."

"Great," Tony said. "Any chance you know what?"

"S.H.I.E.L.D. has no official jurisdiction in Russia," Fury simply said.

"Unofficially, Fury. You can't tell me you don't have people over there."

"The Avengers don't have jurisdiction there either," Bruce pointed out.

"And as Stark points out," Coulson said, "that doesn't mean we don't have eyes over there. At the moment, this isn't a mission for the Avengers."

"It's something you're being informed of," Fury said. "It's a potential security risk here in the States, and the Avengers are the first line of defense against security risks. The Winter Soldier has been seen here in the past."

"We defend against abnormal threats," Steve said. "Assassins don't count as abnormal."

"When it's HYDRA, they do." Coulson had that small "what-can-you-do?" smile on his face.

Considering what HYDRA had done the last time they'd had full reign under the Red Skull, Tony could certainly see why S.H.I.E.L.D. would want the Avengers to be informed of anything related to the organization. The Winter Soldier failing to kill the Russian president would certainly be on that list, especially if he'd never failed to kill a mark before.

What kind of message it sent Tony wasn't sure about, but it was probably the kind that meant "We're still here." HYDRA had to know that S.H.I.E.L.D. knew who the Winter Soldier was associated with. They also had to know that there was no way S.H.I.E.L.D. wouldn't know that A.I.M. hadn't sent the assassin who'd tried to kill Tony, so it was probably their way of subtly announcing their presence. But the bigger picture eluded Tony for now, probably because of the last two weeks of lying in a hospital bed and recovering from near fatal bullet wounds.

HYDRA had kidnapped him initially about a year ago, but that had been small scale compared to what they were potentially gearing up to do now. The fact that they'd actually tried to pass his would-be assassin off as a lackey of A.I.M. might mean they were doing _something_ with the technological think tank.

Or maybe they'd just gotten their hands on one of those god-awful suits and decided to use it for kicks. Weirder things had happened.

Whatever the reason for HYDRA's activities, Tony thought it wouldn't be long before it revealed itself. Considering the timing, there was no way they'd be keeping quiet for much longer.

They were bad guys. Bad guys never seemed to have much patience.

* * *

The ride back to the mansion was silent, each of them absorbed in their own thoughts. Some strange looks were sent Tony's way, though he couldn't decipher their meaning.

Steve kept his shoulder pressed up against Tony's the entire time, and every now and then he would shoot him a look and break into bright smiles. Confused, Tony would smile back, only for Steve to look away. Then it would happen again.

Needless to say, Tony was by now very bemused at the state of affairs. Was something going on that no one was telling him?

Even Peter, who could be counted on to fill the air with nervous chatter or ridiculous jokes (and had helped alleviate the boredom during Tony's hospital stay), was quiet. Tony could tell it was difficult for him since his legs kept bouncing up and down in nervous excitement, and he kept moving as if about to say something and then cutting himself off.

Tony wasn't telepathic, but it was times like this that he almost wished he _was_.

A pit of worry settling in his stomach, Tony waited anxiously for touchdown, when whatever was going on would come to a head.

Clint landed the Quinjet expertly, the landing so soft it was almost unnoticeable. Natasha opened the door by flicking the lever over her head, revealing the manicured green lawns behind their mansion. There was nothing suspicious out there to justify Tony's unease.

"Home sweet home!" Clint said, sounding far too jovial.

"Oh, thank God," Peter said fervently. "This is _really_ starting to chafe."

"I offered you a paper bag," Clint said, turning to look unpityingly on the teen.

"I refuse to look like a Charlie Brown cosplayer."

"It's not a bed sheet."

"Which makes it _worse_," Peter said as Tony made his way to the door, Steve shadowing his every move like a worried mother hen.

"I'm not going to fall over," Tony hissed.

"Who said anything about that?" Steve's tone was maddeningly cordial.

Tony squinted at him, unconvinced with his innocent act. "You're _acting_ like I'll keel over any minute."

"I'm just staying close in case you trip or something. Clint waxed the floors."

"I did not!" Clint shouted indignantly from his seat.

"Then what was that earlier?" Bruce asked. "You had a mop and a bucket and a bottle of wax polish."

Clint glowered menacingly but didn't elaborate.

"He was polishing his bow," Natasha said bluntly. "And, no, that wasn't an euphemism."

"Natasha!" Clint complained.

"What was the mop for then?" Tony asked curiously.

"Can't you guess?" Clint said peevishly, shooting Natasha a quelling look. She gave him an amused one in return but said nothing.

"It was a ruse. No, wait…" Tony made a show of screwing his face up in thought. "It was to mop up the mess you made while you polished your bow. Euphemism intended."

"Tony…" Steve groaned, though his face was fond.

Peter had his mask off now, his hair tousled. "That tone doesn't work if you stare at him sappily like that."

"Peter," Bruce said completely seriously, "they're _always_ like this."

"No, it's Steve," Natasha disagreed. "Tony's usually more discreet."

"Are you kidding?" Clint said. "You're talking about the guy who gave a red, white, and blue themed birthday party, right? And rented out an entire hotel in Paris only for Doom to crash it because he had a grudge against Tony for destroying all his robots last time?"

"Really?" Peter asked, sounding fascinated.

"Yes, really, kid."

"I'm leaving," Tony announced to absolutely nobody before spinning around and walking down the ramp to the lawn.

"It was a nice thought," Steve said behind him. "But it didn't work out."

"My plans usually don't," Tony admitted mournfully, gazing up at the sky.

"I wouldn't say that," Steve said. "They usually work to get us out of a tight spot in the field."

"Well, that, yeah. But my everyday plans tend to blow up in my face."

"Sometimes literally!" Clint shouted, clearly eavesdropping.

"No one asked you!" Tony shouted back.

"Let's go inside," Steve prompted before they broke into a snipe-fest that would take hours to dissolve and maybe break into a prank war that would last even longer.

Shooting him a wary look that went unnoticed, Tony followed Steve into the mansion, silently wondering if anything would happen _now_.

Nothing did, and the pit in his stomach softened just a tad.

"You look like something's about to eat you," Steve observed.

"What? No, I don't." Tony quickly put a peaceful expression on. "I'm cool. Totally cool."

Steve's look was painfully fond. "Whatever you say."

_It is good to have you home, sir,_ JARVIS greeted him. _It has been quite a while._

Whatever Tony would have said to that was cut off by Peggy's ecstatic screaming. **_He's _here_? Tony's _back_? Quick, JARVIS! Tell him to come here! No, wait, he can hear me now. _Tony_!_**

**_DADDY_**_!_ Spike's screech was particularly loud, if mental speak could be called that. But then his voice rung though the mansion as well. "_DADDY_!"

Tony had enough time to brace himself before an exuberant coffee machine collided with his chest, wrapping a cord around his shoulders and squeezing tightly. "Spike," he managed, wincing as Spike dug into the sensitive energy source in his chest. "Easy, kid."

"You're home!" Spike squealed, pulling back only to spin circles around Tony's head.

"I am."

His bots in the workshop were rousing themselves now.

**_He's here now?_** Dummy asked. **_Tony?_**

Shh! Butterfingers shushed him.

**_I'm not saying anything!_** Dummy sounded indignant.

He can _look_!

**_He wouldn't._**

_Guys?_ Tony asked.

All three bots gave squeaks of surprise before falling completely silent.

Suspicious…

"Apologies, sir," JARVIS said. "They are all rather excited."

"Aw, don't apologize, JARVIS," Clint said, having watched Spike spin around Tony's head for the last minute. "He's been gone for a while."

At this Spike stopped spinning, drawing slowly to a stop and hovering by Tony's ear, the whir of his little repulsors unusually loud both technologically (humming wise) and physically. If Tony didn't know better, he'd say Spike was almost _mad_.

Steve was looking rather pained now. "Spike—"

"No!" Spike shouted, cord lashing at him furiously. "Not listening!"

"Spike!" Tony scolded instantly, shocked.

"No, don't." Steve laid a hand on Tony's arm, shaking his head and looking weary. "I deserve it."

"Steve—"

"I do," Steve said firmly.

"He shouldn't _shout_ like that," Tony insisted.

_He hurt you! _Spike said. _And you were gone for ages and ages and ages!_

**_Months,_** Peggy added quickly. **_Can you come into the kitchen?_**

_Just a sec, Peggy._ Tony gently pushed Spike out of the way before saying, "Gotta check on something in the kitchen."

"Peggy's been a nightmare," Clint proclaimed, drawing glares from everyone but Tony. "Just telling it like it is!"

Deciding not to say anything, Tony slipped away in the direction of the kitchen. The moment he walked in, a few chords of a beeping _Titanium_ announced his entrance before shutting off due to Peggy's overexcitement. All the lights on her were flickering and her arm was waving frantically.

**_I can't believe you're really here! _**Peggy sounded so excited that if she were human she would've likely been bouncing off the walls.

"I'm here," Tony said, smiling down at her. "Not likely to leave soon either."

**_We missed you!_** Peggy's lights were dimming slightly. **_Next time don't leave. Please?_**

Tony swallowed slightly, glancing back at where Steve was hovering in the doorframe. "I can't make any promises, Peggy."

**You**** _shouldn't have left!_** Peggy beeped furiously, and Tony could hear Steve shuffle back for some odd reason.

_Peggy, calm down, please,_ JARVIS said calmly. _There will be time for this later._

**_ Fine, okay. _**There was a faint hissing noise from her. **_I'm just glad you're back._**

_Me, too!_ Spike chimed in.

From behind Tony, Steve asked, "D'you wanna head down?"

Just the way Steve asked the question, all innocent and puppy eyes, had Tony's bells ringing. What was down in the workshop that he needed to see?

It was with an effort of will that he refrained from checking the cameras with Extremis, instead choosing to trust that Steve had a reason for his behavior. It was weird enough that the others were no longer there, giving them some much needed privacy.

"Yeah, why not?" Tony said instead, shrugging lightly. "Need to say hi to the boys anyway."

As Tony left the kitchen and Peggy behind, feeling her link into the cameras so she could keep an eye on them, Steve stepped close to him. "Okay?"

Tony shot him a look, ignoring the way Spike buzzed unhappily by his head. "Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Just checking." Steve's smile looked rather forced. "You haven't been home in a while."

_Whose fault is that? _Spike asked sulkily.

_Spike,_ Tony warned, eyes flicking over to him.

Spike said nothing more, but Tony could sense his continued resentment. There was nothing he could glean from Steve's expression other than a faint impression of resignation.

It bugged Tony because nothing that had happened had been Steve's fault. He hadn't overreacted or done anything else that would warrant such behavior. Tony had expected Steve would be angry after he'd gone after Mallen like that (he _hadn't_ predicted Steve saying he couldn't do it anymore), so it wasn't like he'd been caught off guard. Tony could admit he'd been reckless, but he would do it again given the same circumstances.

All further thought regarding that peculiar state of affairs was driven out of his mind once he saw the workshop.

**Surprise!** Dummy, Butterfingers, and You shouted, their combined voices turning into Extremis-red in Tony's head.

"W-what…" Tony didn't finish his sentence, too stunned by this turn of events.

"Surprise," Clint said, grinning cheerfully.

Hanging off of the ceiling, Peter belatedly tooted a party horn.

The entire workshop had been decorated for a party. Balloons floated everywhere (Spike was poking one rather gleefully) and colorful steamers decorated every surface. There was a large banner directly above his head proclaiming CONGRATULATIONS. There was another on the other wall saying WELCOME HOME.

In the middle of the workshop was a large cake rather clumsily decorated in red and gold and had some candles stuck in it, two of which were upside down.

**_We made the cake!_** Dummy proudly announced.

"JARVIS," Tony started, unsure of the cake's edibility.

"The baking was closely monitored," JARVIS assured him. "All ingredients are safe for human consumption."

"I notice you didn't say if it was any good," Clint noted.

"That would not be within my prerogative, Agent, as I do not possess taste buds."

"But they made cake!" Peter said before anyone could get too hurt at Clint's lack of tact.

"When did you guys pull this together?" Tony asked, unable to stop a note of wonder from creeping into his tone.

"I stopped by last night," Natasha said. "S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn't the only thing I did. Your boys did most of the work." She shot the bots a fond look.

"I asked them to do it," Steve said, drawing Tony's attention. "It seemed appropriate considering…"

"Congratulations for not dying, you mean?" Tony asked, instantly regretting the joke when a stricken look crossed Steve's face. "Forget I ever said that."

A balloon popped, eliciting a shriek from Spike, and he zipped behind Tony to hide.

"I did warn you, Spike," JARVIS said reprovingly.

"Who wants a slice of cake?" Bruce called calmly, holding a knife and a plate.

"I do!" Clint said, turning his back to Tony and Steve and beginning to harass Bruce while Peter said something about the recipient of the party being the first to get a slice.

Steve made to brush past Tony, but fingers grabbing hold of his sleeve made him pause.

"I'm sorry," Tony said quickly, unable to meet his eyes. "That was insensitive of me."

"No, it's…" Steve sighed. "That's normal. You not thinking, that is."

"I should," Tony said guiltily.

"Look…" Steve cupped his neck, making sure Tony was meeting his eyes as he continued, "You can be thoughtlessly insensitive and cruel, but that's just who you are. I'm used to it."

"I hurt you."

"And I hurt you, too." Steve glanced down momentarily before meeting Tony's eyes again. "It's okay."

_It isn't,_ Tony wanted to say. But he didn't, because he could tell Steve wasn't having it.

"Cake, guys!" Peter interrupted, brown eyes wide as he handed both of them slices of what looked like vanilla and chocolate cake. He had a third plate balancing on his head.

"Smooth, kid," Clint called.

"Thanks, Pete." Tony took his slice.

"I have a small question," Clint said loudly, catching Tony's attention. He was standing in front of the couch. "Is this thing safe to sit on? Or did you guys do some fondueing?"

"Fondueing?" Peter asked, brow furrowed.

"Don't ask," Natasha advised him, taking a bite of her slice.

"I dunno," Tony said, smirking. "It all gets kinda blurry after round three. We did do it against that table"—he gestured at the table the cake was on—"and the wall"—the one Natasha was leaning against—"but the couch?"

Steve was blushing rather furiously now and looking down at his slice, refusing to meet anybody's eyes.

"Come on, honey." Tony dug an elbow in his side. "I thought I fucked the nervousness out of you?"

"TMI!" Peter yelped just as Steve groaned in mortification, "_Tony_."

"The short answer, Clint," Bruce said, "is yes. They did fondue on the couch. I saw them."

"Bruce, you voyeur!" Tony waggled his eyebrows at him. "I never!"

"It was an accident," Bruce said long-sufferingly. "And not one I'll repeat."

"If you ever want a threesome—"

"No," Steve said, still blushing but now speaking firmly without a hint of embarrassment. "I'm a twosome kind of guy."

Rhodey's voice sounded from the door, "What's this about twosomes?" He blinked upon seeing them all; Pepper was standing next to him, a long-suffering look on her face. "I thought we agreed no starting without me?"

"It wasn't my decision," Steve said.

"Have a slice," Bruce offered, holding up the knife.

Rhodey furrowed his brow as he looked at the cake. "Is it edible?"

"Yes," Steve and Tony said, already halfway through their slices.

Pepper spoke this time. "Is it good?"

"Yes."

"I like the speaking in synchrony thing," Peter said, gesturing at them with his fork. "Can it be a new thing? I think you'd creep villains out."

"It's a bad thing," Clint said, fork waving teasingly at Spike. "Because it's a thing that'd irritate us."

"But it's a cool thing."

"I vote we stop calling it a thing," Rhodey said, taking the cake slice from Bruce, "and call it what it is. Marriage."

Tony glanced at Steve, only to find him already looking back. Mouth twitching slightly, Tony returned his attention to his cake, which really was quite good.

They eventually relocated to the couch, being the only two who felt comfortable about sitting there. Tony caught some grumbles from the bots while they sat there, but none of them actually said anything.

Eventually, Steve put aside his and Tony's plates and turned to him with a completely serious face. "This wasn't _just_ for welcoming you back, Tony."

"I won't repeat my earlier joke," Tony quipped.

Steve's lips twitched slightly. "I had an ulterior motive," he admitted, shifting to slide off the couch and down on one knee before Tony. "You said I seemed like the romantic type who'd do it on a knee and with a ring. And…" He chewed his lower lip, eyes shuttering as he reached into his pant pockets to pull out a small black box. Glancing up almost shyly at a dumbstruck Tony, he continued, "I can't really picture my life without you anymore."

"Not the greatest reason for this," Tony pointed out, mouth dry.

"Tony," Steve said fondly, "shut up." He cracked open the box, revealing an elegant gold ring with gleaming geometric red lines running through it. "Will you marry me, Tony?"

Tony kept silent for a moment, aware that no one else was speaking or even seeming to breathe right now. It would be horribly insensitive of him to crack a joke now.

He inclined his head, giving a small smile as he said softly, "Yes."

A brilliant smile broke out across Steve's face, and he took the ring out to carefully slide it onto Tony's finger directly before he leaned up and forward to kiss Tony deeply.

That seemed to serve as the catalyst for everyone to burst into excited chatter.

There was a outraged cry of "Dummy!" but Tony wasn't looking, too busy focusing on the kiss.

Then he pulled back, brushing his lips against Steve's as he whispered, "You didn't have to do this."

"I did." Steve rubbed his nose against Tony's, eyes still closed. Then he opened them, smiling helplessly against Tony's lips. "I really did."

Over Steve's shoulder Tony could see the cause for the outrage, as Dummy had apparently unfurled another banner that read JUST MARRIED, only the "married" was crossed out and ENGAGED had been scrawled rather messily next to it.

Steve had caught sight of it, too, and was grinning broadly. "I asked them for permission," he told Tony quietly.

"They said yes?"

Steve's smile turned faintly disbelieving. "Yeah."

"How'd you get the ring?" Tony looked down at it, barely able to believe it was there. "It looks custom-made."

"It is." Steve ducked his head. "Um…I might have…ordered it before the whole SHRA thing."

Tony blinked. "What?"

Steve looked obstinate. "I knew from the beginning I was in this for good." He rubbed a thumb over the ring. "I just never found the right time."

"Steve…" Tony was at a loss.

"It's okay." Steve smiled softly. "I'm just really happy right now."

"I…" Tony swallowed lightly, flipping his hand around to interlace his fingers with Steve's, squeezing tightly. "Me, too."

As Steve leaned in for another warm kiss, Tony caught sight of Rhodey and Pepper with worried expressions on their faces as they watched.

It reminded him that there were still some issues he needed to talk about, and not just with Steve.

* * *

Three hours later found Tony upstairs in the kitchen with Peggy and Spike, having been kicked out as the team cleaned up the mess in the workshop. He'd tried to argue that it was _his_ space and so it should be his responsibility, but Spike had been shoved into his arms by Natasha and then Dummy had pushed him out, JARVIS locking the door and refusing to let him in.

Able to take a hint, Tony had skulked off to the kitchen, curling up next to Peggy with Spike in his lap. He'd since then carried on an entire conversation in his head, enjoying being able to communicate on this level with his AIs.

About half an hour into it, Tony heard two pairs of footsteps that he was easily able to identify as Pepper and Rhodey. He looked up expectantly, eyebrows lifting when he saw the set expressions on their faces.

"Did I mess something up?" he asked. "Because you only look like that when you're about to lecture me."

"We're not going to lecture you," Pepper said, sitting down on a chair facing Tony.

"Really," Rhodey added, sitting next to Pepper.

Tony gave them both skeptical looks. "Then why the faces?"

"It's just…" Pepper's eyes darted down to the ring on his finger.

"We're worried," Rhodey said bluntly, not looking away from Tony's eyes. "We're worried that you're making a mistake."

"Saying yes to Steve's proposal?" Tony couldn't stop himself from sounding confused.

"After what happened the last several months," Pepper said, "tell us we don't have a right to be worried. Because what happened wasn't in any way okay."

"I don't get it." Tony straightened up against the cabinet he was leaning back against. "Why are all you guys ragging on Steve? What happened wasn't his fault."

"If you're going to say it was yours, I will not hesitate to punch you," Rhodey warned.

"Bit violent there, Rhodey," Tony said calmly.

"He's right," Pepper said firmly. "It wasn't your fault, and it might not have been Steve's fault either, but what he did afterward wasn't at all right."

"Get angry with me? He had every right to, Pepper."

"Freezing you out?" Rhodey pointed out. "Not talking? You can get angry, but giving your partner the cold shoulder isn't good, Tony."

"I was just as cold as he was," Tony protested. "This isn't just on him!"

"No, it's not." Pepper thinned her lips, resting a hand on Rhodey's shoulder to stop him from saying anything else. "But we're not going to achieve anything by going round and round in circles like this, trying to figure out who's guilty. It was a bad situation, and it's over now, but what we're worried about is that this all seems just a little _fast_."

"You almost died, Tony." Rhodey's voice was carefully even. "That kind of experience does things to a man, whether or not you're in a romantic relationship. Are you sure you're not moving too fast?"

"Honestly? No." Tony offered a quick smile, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. "But that's me, guys. I'm impulsive. Sometimes it works out; sometimes it doesn't."

"This isn't something you can gamble with, Tony," Rhodey said sharply.

"I'm not. I'm really not. I wouldn't gamble on something like this, Rhodey."

"We're also concerned about Steve," Pepper continued.

"Poo!" Spike grunted, sounding disgusted.

"Shush," Tony reprimanded him, rapping sharply against the glass of the coffee pot.

"You didn't see him before," Pepper said. "We had to force him to sleep and eat."

Tony couldn't help giving a small grin. "So you're wondering if he's jumping into this without really thinking about it?"

"Yes," Rhodey and Pepper said simultaneously.

"Ha, that's a riot." Tony snickered. "You guys, Steve has always thought things through." He waved his left hand around, flashing the ring. "He told me he ordered this ring months ago, way before he knew about SHRA. Tell me this is an impulsive decision if he'd already decided on it _before_ the whole mess started."

Pepper blinked, looking slightly taken aback. "Well…that's slightly more reassuring."

"Than if he'd decided to propose just as an apology?" Rhodey asked, settling back in his chair. "Gotta agree with that."

Tony arched an eyebrow, dropping his hand. "So…we good?"

"Just about," Rhodey said. "But we're still keeping an eye on you both."

Groaning softly, Tony bumped his head lightly against the cabinet. "Jeez, how old do you guys think I am? Ten?"

"It's not that we don't think you can take care of yourself, Tony," Pepper said gently. "It's that we _care_. And we wouldn't be very good friends if we didn't make sure that both of you were making the right decision."

"If you ask me, you guys are just ridiculously nosy."

"Pot, meet kettle," Rhodey said dryly. "Who's the one who always hacks into my account to spy on my missions?"

"Who says hack anymore?"

"We're not going to stop, Tony," Pepper said lightly, reaching down to pat his knee. "Better get used to it."

Tony snorted, folding his arms against his chest. "Do I have much of a choice?"

Rhodey and Pepper both smiled sweetly and answered "No," an eerie sight since they performed it simultaneously.

Tony widened his eyes. "Now that's just _creepy_. How much did you have practice that?"

"We'll see you later, Tony," Pepper replied, patting him once more on the knee before she got up and left.

"I'll phone," Rhodey added, also pushing himself to his feet. "I'm being called back now. Can't really push it anymore considering how much more leave I got than originally granted."

"Blame Pepper," Tony said entirely seriously.

"She is frightening, isn't she?" Rhodey chuckled lowly, nodding his head once before leaving as well.

"Well, then…" Tony relaxed back against the cabinet. "Not entirely unexpected."

**_We're keeping an eye on him, too,_** Peggy informed him.

Tony blinked, considering what he should say to that before he gave it up as a lost cause. "I'm not going to bother with that."

_Good, _Spike said, satisfied.

If his AIs were behaving like this _now_ – now that Steve and he had made up – Tony didn't particularly want to know what life had been like for Steve these last few months.

But something told him he would soon find out.

* * *

"You didn't need to do it," Tony told Steve later as they were getting into bed.

Sliding under the covers, Steve blinked at him, looking rather confused. "Do what?"

"That thing we did earlier today. The party." Tony propped himself up on an elbow. "You didn't need to do it."

Steve hummed lightly. "I didn't _need_ to do it, but I _wanted_ to. Besides, the others wanted to welcome you home."

"I wasn't expecting a ring."

"I know." Steve smiled up at him. "I didn't have it on me in the hospital."

"I don't have one for you," Tony said, letting Steve tug him down to lie down comfortably.

"It's fine." Steve laid his head on Tony's chest, sighing lightly as his arm wrapped around Tony's waist. "Just glad you're here."

Tony half-noticed Steve completely melting into him; he stroked the hairs at Steve's nape absentmindedly, wondering out loud, "What was it like while I was gone?"

Steve was already half-asleep as he mumbled, "Nothin' I didn't deserve…"

"What?" Tony picked his head up, blinking down at Steve. "What do you mean?"

Steve didn't respond, already asleep.

"Don't think this gets you out of answering that question properly," Tony told him, a warm feeling spreading through him.

Huffing lightly, Tony let his head sink back into his pillow. He'd spent so much time sleeping over the last several days it'd be a miracle if he could even manage a few hours now.

Closing his eyes, Tony linked into Extremis and into the computers in his workshop. Ignoring JARVIS's air of disapproval, Tony began tweaking the coding of his prototype tablets, smoothing out the glitches he had noticed during his time at Richards's. If all went well, he could have them out on the market in two months or so.

He didn't even notice when his real-life coding faded into dreams.

* * *

Two gunshots cracked through the air. He didn't even feel the impact, only conscious of the pain ripping through his chest a moment later. He couldn't breathe; blood was filling his mouth from his failing lungs.

Forcing his eyes open, he tried to beg for help from Steve, who was just standing there as if Tony wasn't dying right in front of him.

"Steve…"

Steve furrowed his brow, shaking his head once. He opened his mouth, and his voice – distorted – said, "You brought this on yourself, Tony. Why couldn't you have listened?"

He spluttered out blood, desperately trying to catch his breath (_his lungs hurt, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe_). "Steve, I'm _sorry_. Please…"

Steve said nothing more, turning his back and walking away (_he'd promised he'd **stay**_).

"Steve. _Steve_." Blood was filling his throat and mouth no matter how much he tried to clear his airway (_he couldn't breathe and his lungs hurt and why was Steve **leaving**?_). "_Please_."

With a broken gasp, Tony woke, Steve's name on his lips. Startled, he bit it back, instead opting for deep breaths (he could breathe, he was fine, he was _fine_).

Steve was lying practically on top of him and hadn't stirred. It was a testament to how sleep-deprived he'd been over the last several weeks (and months) that he hadn't woken up even though his pillow was a trembling mess.

Focusing on his heartbeat and the pace of his breathing, Tony managed to calm himself down. Still, he could do nothing about the sick feeling his dream (nightmare) had left him with. That was something that would only fade with time.

_Sir?_ JARVIS asked. _Are you all right?_

_Yeah._ Tony was relieved he at least sounded calmer in his head than he would've if he'd tried speaking out loud. _I'm good, JARVIS._

_If you say so, sir._ JARVIS didn't sound at all convinced.

_I do, I definitely do._ Tony focused on the weight of Steve, letting it ground him in the present. He wasn't dying or bleeding out on the courthouse steps. He was perfectly fine and so was Steve.

Still, he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep. That much was for sure. And he couldn't slip away from Steve either, not without waking him up. That wasn't something Tony wanted to do at all. Steve needed the sleep, but Tony had more than enough of it to last him for weeks on end.

And that's what he had Extremis for.

_I'm going to work,_ he said.

JARVIS gave off a distinct air of disapproval again. _Are you certain that is wise, sir?_

_Oh yeah, definitely._ Tony scowled up at the ceiling, giving JARVIS's disapproval the mental finger. _Let me work myself into a frenzy after I haven't been able to in **weeks**._

JARVIS gave a silent sigh. _We have missed you in the shop, sir. What will you work on now?_

_Was I done with the coding?_ Tony didn't wait for a reply, instead checking on the work himself. To his relief it was entirely done. _Check that off the list. Ooh, I know… Let's work on a deflector shield._

_Shall I prepare the workshop for testing tomorrow, sir?_

_Hey, why not. Can't hurt._ Tony pulled open a new file, closing his eyes and settling back as he absorbed himself in the process of engineering.

Two hours later, Tony was roused from his engineering haze by Dummy tentatively saying, **_We did miss you, Tony._**

Tony blinked, confused at the unexpected statement. _What brought this on?_

**_We told Steve it was all right… He could ask you about the engagement… But he _hurt _you, and you were gone for ages._**

Tony's heart sunk. _Guys…_

He _did_! Butterfingers insisted heatedly. And no one would tell us _anything_!

_ That is not entirely true,_ JARVIS chided gently. _I informed you of the details._

_Hey,_ Tony said firmly before anyone else could speak. _It wasn't Steve's fault, okay? I hurt him, too. It went both ways._

**_But you _left_,_** Peggy said, joining the conversation. **_He didn't._**

_It was complicated…_

**_That's human talk for 'you don't want to admit we're right,'_** Dummy pointed out, sounding rather peeved.

_No, it's human talk for 'that means that it's **complicated**.'_

**Then explain!**You demanded.

_It wasn't black and white, kids. It was a very big gray area. Someone was going to get hurt one way or another. We both ended up hurting each other, and we needed some space to think things over._

_That's not true,_ Spike said. _Big people 'think things over'_—Tony could practically _see_ the quotation marks he was using—_without being gone for months and months!_

_This was a difficult situation Spike. It doesn't change the fact that Steve did nothing wrong. He was mad, and he had every right to be._

**_He promised he wouldn't hurt you,_** Dummy said. **_And then he did._**

_ Relationships are painful. Doesn't matter what you're looking at, sometimes you're going to end up hurting each other one way or another. It's a fact of life, and it's something you guys need to learn, too._

There was a small hesitant pause, and then Dummy cautiously asked, **_Obie?_**

Tony's breath left him in a sharp exhale, and he quickly checked to be sure Steve was still sleeping. Assured that he was, he returned his focus to the conversation. _Bit of an extreme example, but yeah. Like Obie._

_This situation was, however, entirely different,_ JARVIS added. _It would be akin to comparing apples and oranges, Dummy. What Obadiah Stane did was entirely different to what happened here._

**_ He almost died,_** Peggy said.

_I'm still here._ Tony let that sink in for a few moments. _But this has got to stop. Steve didn't do anything wrong. If you're going to be mad at him, you have to be mad at me, too._

Everyone shouted then, their codes running together into Extremis-red. **No!**

Tony refrained from wincing. _There. If you can't be mad at me, don't be mad at him._

**I still don't agree,** You said.

_That's fine. Just don't give Steve a hard time anymore, okay?_

**_Fine._**Dummy gave the impression of sighing. **_I'll let him back in here._**

Tony furrowed his brow at the implication that Steve had been entirely unable to enter the workshop until yesterday.

**_He can cook, _**Peggy added, further startling Tony.

_No coffee, _Spike said sulkily, obstinacy radiating from every piece of his coding.

Tony refrained from sighing in case they could hear it. _Whatever suits you, Spike._

And since JARVIS had been silent for the majority of the conversation, Tony asked, _JARVIS?_

The response, when it came, had a different frequency from the rest of the conversation. Startled, it took Tony only seconds to realize this was completely private. _I apologize, sir. I fear that I may also not have been as entirely forgiving as I should have been these last few months. I will rectify this situation immediately._

_JARVIS, I get it._

_Do you, sir? Because – please pardon my impudence – I realize that when it comes to personal matters, you can be somewhat blind. And Captain Rogers is a particularly large blind spot._

_I'm not an idiot._

_Far from it, sir. But everyone requires the view of an outside party in situations such as this. Yet in this case, I fear we may all have lost sight of the larger picture._

_JARVIS?_

_It is no matter, sir. _JARVIS didn't elaborate further. _Do you believe you can possibly sleep now?_

Tony didn't respond immediately, reviewing how he felt physically. He wasn't tired, but that could also be explained by the conversation he'd just had. He'd also been working for a while before it, and that always got his heart pumping.

A quick look at the clock showed that it was now four in the morning.

Steve snuffled softly, shifting slightly before resettling his head, tucking it directly under Tony's chin, a few stray wisps of blond hair tickling his nose.

Mind made up, Tony said, _I'll give it a shot._

_Very good, sir. Then, as it is no longer night, I shall wish you good morning._

Smirking lightly at JARVIS's snark, Tony closed his eyes with the aim of sleeping this time. It would only be a few hours this time, but at least Steve wouldn't give him a disapproving look upon realizing he'd spent quite a few hours engineering.

* * *

The next morning found all of them in the kitchen eating a large breakfast courtesy of Peter and Bruce. Tony found himself saddled with a plate of fruit, eggs, yogurt, and toast with cheese while Clint gleefully poured maple syrup over his pancakes.

"Why don't I get any pancakes?" he asked, sullenly poking his scrambled eggs with a fork.

"Because you're just coming out of the hospital," Steve answered smoothly, setting his orange juice on the table and planting a kiss on top of Tony's head. "Besides, sugar isn't very good for you."

"My aunt always said that," Peter said ruefully, stabbing a strawberry with his fork. "But then I was always fonder of peanut butter." Sure enough, his bread had been slathered with peanut butter.

"It's got proteins," Bruce pointed out, settling back in his chair with a mug of steaming tea. "Considering your abilities, I'm not surprised."

"I liked it _before_ I got bitten by a spider."

"I still can't get over how screwed up that is," Clint said. "Who gets bitten by a spider and then gets _spider_ powers?"

"Stranger things have happened," Tony said, tearing apart the Swiss cheese he'd been given. "Mild-mannered gamma physicist turning into a huge green rage monster?"

"That wins," Peter said.

"Perhaps," Bruce agreed calmly.

They settled into a comfortable silence for the next twenty minutes, eating their breakfasts. Tony occasionally snuck bits of food off Steve's plate considering he had gigantic portions as usual; Steve retaliated by stealing Tony's grapes, which were his favorite fruit and the cheat knew that full well.

At one point Clint ended up making enough lewd faces as he was eating his pancakes that Tony hid his maple syrup at the top of the kitchen cabinets and all the way in the back against the wall when he wasn't looking. Then he hid the flour for good measure, as Clint wouldn't be expecting that.

Natasha just stared at him as he was discreetly lifting the aforementioned objects, both eyebrows lifted disapprovingly. Tony stuck his tongue out in retaliation, eliciting an eye roll.

"You know," Peter said slowly after he'd finished his food, "I'd kind of like to know when I can get back to my normal life."

Clint made a face. "You don't like it here?"

"I do. It's just that I've got a _life_, you know?"

"No."

"He's pulling your leg," Tony said, kicking Clint in the leg under the table. "He knows."

Clint gave him one of his infamous blank looks. "No, I really don't. I've been a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent for most of my life. That doesn't _give_ you a life outside of missions."

"That seems kind of sad," Steve said.

"It's life," Clint said, shrugging noncommittally.

"Seeing as how Agent Barton can't understand, let me go on the record as saying I do," Tony said to Peter. "How's your girlfriend doing?"

"Gwen's fine." Peter smiled fondly. "Just wondering when I can get back to school."

"A.I.M.'s still out there," Natasha said slowly. "And so is HYDRA."

"It's not like they're going to go _away_," Peter protested. "HYDRA's been around since World War II at least. A.I.M. only a few years less."

Tony spoke, "The point is that while they're as capable as they are now – which is terrifyingly capable for a bunch of bozos"—Steve frowned slightly at that—"we can't risk it. We need to hit them hard where it hurts – cripple them so it takes a few decades for them to regroup." He scowled. "You'd think doing M.O.D.O.K. in would do that."

"But he has a _son_." Clint paused dramatically to let that horrifying fact sink in.

"I don't want to know how he got one," Tony said, grimacing at the memory of that monstrous man.

"Through sex?" Bruce proposed.

"Bruce, if you saw this guy, you'd know why no one in hell would ever have sex with him. I don't think he even had the equipment. Or maybe he did, but it might've not been in working condition considering the size of his head." Tony made to approximate the size with his hands but reconsidered upon realizing his arms weren't long enough.

"We gathered it was through science," Natasha said evenly. "But as it didn't interest us much beyond knowing what he was using it for, I don't know the exact details."

"Then what?" Peter asked. "Not that I don't appreciate the break from school, but I do still have things to do."

"Your aunt knows where you are?" Tony asked.

"I told her once on a secure line, but I haven't had any contact beyond that." Peter grimaced slightly. "I don't have a clue what she thinks about the whole thing. I still haven't told her I'm Spider-Man. Gwen knows, so at least I don't have that to worry about."

"You told your girlfriend you're a superhero, but your aunt knows nothing?" Clint sounded incredulous.

Peter looked rather ashamed now. "It…was kind of spur of the moment? Besides, I don't think Aunt May would like it. Too dangerous."

"I'll be honest," Steve said. "_I_ don't like it. Kids your age shouldn't have to worry about going out and stopping the kind of things we fight. But you're going to do it regardless of what we say, so the best we can do is make sure that you go out protected and knowing what you're doing."

"Thanks," Peter said softly.

"And that means no spandex," Tony added. "Because that offers you absolutely no protection."

Peter flushed lightly. "It was the only thing I could afford. 'Sides, I wasn't exactly expecting to go up against something like the _Lizard_."

"I'll whip you up something that'll give you more protection," Tony said. "It's the same material that everyone else here has."

Clint held up a hand, ticking off his fingers as he listed each of the qualities Tony's exclusive material had. "Fireproof, bullet proof from a distance and even close-up depending on where you're shot, doesn't tear easily, stretches"—he gave a pointed look at Bruce—"and hides body heat so you don't show up on cameras. It's saved Natasha and me a lot of grief on S.H.I.E.L.D. missions."

"That…sounds pretty damn awesome," Peter said, eyes wide.

"Great!" Tony grinned broadly. "So why don't we head down later and I'll get it sized for you?"

Spike made a loud show of sneezing, getting everyone's attention. Then he went back to being a regular coffee machine.

"Bless you," Bruce said implacably.

Peggy gave a little snort of gas before quieting.

"Is there we something we should know?" Tony asked, eyebrows raised.

Neither AI responded, and Tony assumed it was something they'd been talking about privately.

Huffing lightly, Tony turned back to Peter. "Wanna do it now?"

"Oh, go ahead," Steve said. "Leave us behind while you science."

Tony gave him a concerned look. "You okay? That wasn't even a proper sentence."

Now Steve rolled his eyes. "I'm fine." He leaned in to kiss Tony's cheek. "Go make sure Peter won't get himself killed by a stray bullet one day."

"I'm hurt you don't trust my reflexes, Cap," Peter said.

Steve raised an eyebrow at the kid, and the sight was apparently imposing enough that Peter put up his hands in surrender, saying, "I get it! Going now to science." He darted away in the direction of the workshop.

"That's my cue." Tony snagged an uneaten piece of melon from Steve's plate, darting away before anyone could say anything.

Peter met with him outside the workshop, following him inside after Tony entered the code.

"Sir," JARVIS said as Peter sat down in a chair by the table in the middle of the room, "I would like to remind you of your request for a material for a suit compatible with Extremis."

Tony frowned slightly, trying to remember when he'd requested that. It hit him then: he'd done it after the Wrecking Crew (_so long ago_). "What'd you get?"

"I presumed that the material for your previous suits – while high tech – is not advanced enough for Extremis to absorb. As such, I set my goals a little higher." A hologram lit before Tony, listing the details of the material JARVIS had selected. "These are nano-fibers, sir."

"Nanites?" Peter asked.

"Better," Tony murmured, studying the structure of the fibers. "Only way we can see if Extremis will take this in is if we give it a shot. Put an order in, JARVIS."

"I have already done so, sir. It arrived last week and is currently awaiting inspection."

Tony laughed. "Good man, JARVIS."

"Should I come back later?" Peter asked.

"Nah." Tony waved a hand to indicate he should stay sitting. "All I really need is for JARVIS to scan you so I have your size and measurements. After that I just need to manufacture the fabric and have you put it on to make sure there aren't any adjustments I need to make."

Peter stood then, raising his arms. "I'm ready?"

"Thank you, Mr. Parker." JARVIS's humming peaked as he began scanning Peter and storing his measurements in the system.

"I guess this is different from shopping for clothes?" Peter joked.

"For sure," Tony confirmed, following Dummy's motions to get to the nano-fibers JARVIS had ordered. "This needs to fit a lot better than a regular old shirt and pants. Means I need exact measurements, not approximations."

"Can't argue with that," Peter muttered, blinking as his head was scanned.

Tony whistled lowly as he opened a box and revealed a sleek black fabric. He picked it up, running it through his fingers. "Seems a bit delicate."

"I was assured it is much stronger than conventional materials," JARVIS said, finishing up with Peter.

Squinting down at the material, Tony began pulling at it, using his Extremis-enhanced strength. When the material didn't give even with that, he flicked his fingers and retrieved one of his sharper tools. He then tried to cut through the cloth, tongue sticking out slightly as he grunted with effort.

"Should I give it a shot?" Peter offered.

"Why not." Tony tossed both sharp tool and cloth to him.

Raising both eyebrows at the feel of the material, Peter took the tool in one hand and began attacking the cloth. After several seconds of this, he held both things up. "I think we're good."

"Hang on." Tony pulled over a blowtorch, holding a hand up to catch it midair.

"Wait…" Peter shifted nervously. "Are you sure about this?"

"Yeah. Aren't you?" Tony gave him a manic-looking grin, the blowtorch turning on with a low hiss seconds later.

"Not very," Peter admitted, holding the cloth as far away as he could from his body.

Tongue poking out slightly, Tony held the blowtorch to the cloth, frowning as the material actually caught fire.

Peter yelped, dropping it to the floor and brushing his hands off on his shirt.

"Shame." Tony stepped back to let Dummy put the fire out with his fire extinguisher.

"I did not say it was fireproof," JARVIS said, his tone disapproving.

"That'll have to be rectified."

"Maybe without me holding it?" Peter suggested, looking at the foam-covered floor.

"Don't want a repeat with what happened with Bruce," Tony agreed absentmindedly.

Peter froze. "What happened with Bruce?"

"Nothing much."

"He was set on fire," JARVIS answered genially. "Dummy was thankfully on hand before any damages occurred."

Peter looked disbelieving. "Was this before or after you created the fireproof clothes?"

"Before. You think I'd do something like that now?"

Peter looked pointedly at the ruined piece of cloth Dummy was now holding up to Tony.

"Accidents happen." Tony took the cloth, running the material through his fingers thoughtfully. "JARVIS, get me all the specs you can on this material. I think some adjustments need to be made before anything else."

"Can I… I'll just…go…before there's anything else…you set on fire." Peter edged out of the workshop.

"Is there anything else, sir?"

"Nah, JARVIS." Tony grinned brightly, tugging at the burnt and soggy cloth excitedly. "I think I'm good."

* * *

Two days later, Tony, Steve, Charles, Richards, and Fury met in a private room in Westchester to discuss the status of SHRA as it stood now. The original proposal had been scrapped thanks to the Supreme Court. Still, Congress had been discussing the proposal that Steve, Richards, and Tony had come up with.

It was similar to the UN in a lot of aspects, except that this council would be restricted to the U.S. It would also be smaller. It would be called the Superhuman Advisory Committee (or SAC for short), and its purpose would be to keep an eye on the superhuman community of the U.S. and make sure that any problems would be promptly and appropriately handled when they cropped up.

There was no registering, no infringement on people's rights; it was just a way of letting the superhuman community know that they would be held accountable for their actions and that they could ask for help if they needed it.

It was actually a lot more complicated than that, but Tony was satisfied with the basic intent behind the proposal. The point was that Congress was willing to consider it, and that was a long way from SHRA on the brink of being made law.

Once they were all seated around the round table Charles had given up for this meeting, Charles nodded at Tony and said, "I'm pleased to see you're back in good health. It was rough for a moment there."

"I'm good now," Tony said truthfully.

"You weren't for a while," Steve said quietly, his ankle nudging Tony's.

"But he is now," Richards said reasonably. "Which is the point."

Steve shot him a _look_ but said nothing.

"We all know why we're here," Fury said finally, eye meeting each of the other men around the table.

"The SAC," Richards said calmly, nodding.

"Exactly." Fury leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table and interlacing his fingers. "It's safe to say that it's a shoe-in, so now we need to figure out who to put on the council."

"The conditions were outlined in the proposal," Steve said. "A person representing each side of the superhuman community: a superhuman and a mutant."

"And a human just to add another perspective," Tony said.

"The size of the council is going to increase," Fury said. "They want more humans on it, but we've got the leverage to demand more super humans. The question is who we _need_."

"Steve Rogers," Tony said immediately. "Captain America. He'll be great for the average superhuman."

"I don't think I'm the right guy," Steve objected. "I know nothing about politics."

"Which is what you've got the other members and me for," Tony said. "But I think it's safe to say that you're guaranteed a slot."

"Agreed," Fury said. "Professor? Doctor?"

"I concur with Tony," Charles said. "Steve Rogers is an excellent candidate."

Steve's eyebrows pinched unhappily.

"The skills you have exhibited while leading the Avengers are only a small part of the reason you should be part of the council," Charles said, his tone soothing, evidently in response to whatever he had picked up in Steve's mind.

"Captain," Fury said, catching his attention, "this is only a possibility. You're our first choice on the table because Stark is right. The likelihood of Congress approving you is very high."

"What about the mutants?" Richards asked.

"The professor," Tony said.

"I was going to suggest you," Richards said.

"And I'm not a good option," Tony said. "Professor Xavier's got the connections in the mutant community that I don't. Besides, I'm a bit too much of a hot button to have on an important council like the SAC."

"I was intending to suggest Ororo Munroe," Charles said. "She has many of the connections I do."

"Both of you," Fury said firmly. "Professor, you're the first. Ororo Munroe is our second option. Now about the humans…"

"They're very likely to take a politician," Richards said.

"I nominate Fury," Tony said.

Steve looked inquiringly at Tony. "I wouldn't have thought you'd suggest him."

"I'm an ass, but I'm not an idiot. He's our best option."

"How so?" Fury seemed genuinely curious about Tony's thought process.

"You're a spy. You've got eyes in places most other people don't. You're also a big picture kind of guy. We need that on this committee, especially with the kind of people Congress is liable to try to shove onto it."

Fury snorted. "You trust me with that kind of authority, Stark?"

"You? No." Tony smiled, pointing over at Steve. "I trust in _him_ to reel you guys in."

"You're placing a lot of faith in me, Tony," Steve said, sounding slightly dismayed.

"No, he's right," Richards said. "You've got quite a strong moral compass." His eyes were looking at something not in the room. They cleared a few seconds later. "You just need someone to show you the gray areas."

"Very astute," Charles said. "Then we have Captain Rogers, Director Fury, Dr. Richards, and myself for our first options. Ororo Munroe is a second. That said, it is highly likely that they will push for another human on the council. Since this _is_ the Superhuman Advisory Committee, we need more super humans. I think at best it would be ideal for two humans, three super humans, and three mutants. If not that, we can hope for two of each."

"Worst case, we're outnumbered by humans," Tony said.

"Not very likely," Fury said grimly. "I do have connections."

"Considering who the second human will be is likely out of our hands," Steve said, "what are our other options?"

"I know of several other super humans in New York who might be interested in a job," Charles mused, pressing his fingers together. "It's assumed that those who have a secret identity will keep it secret. If that does turn out to be a problem, we'll be more restricted in our choices."

"Tony and I are always options," Richards offered.

"You, maybe," Tony said in a tone that meant more _fat chance of that_. "Me, not very likely. I'd say Natasha. She's got the diplomacy and skills."

"We'll have to ask her," Steve said.

"If not myself," Fury said, "we've also got Agents Hill and Coulson for potential candidates. Both are not as familiar to the government and more likely to be accepted."

"Would the Council"—Tony looked pointedly at Fury—"go for that?"

"They don't really have a choice," Fury said. "Not if they don't want to be linked to the shooting at the courthouse."

Steve inhaled sharply. "What?"

"We don't have hard proof," Fury continued, "but there's enough to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the Council."

"Let's leave aside the shadowy machinations for now," Charles said, sounding stern. "Let's focus more on keeping this entirely legal. When it comes to the government, we must always be careful to adhere to the rules."

"I'm more of a gray kind of guy," Tony said.

"Trust me, Stark," Fury said evenly, "no one who knows you would think any differently."

Steve opened his mouth, only to be cut off by Fury saying, "You don't count, Captain."

"I was actually going to say I agree."

"I consider that a compliment," Tony said cheerfully, bumping Steve's shoulder with his own. Underneath the table his leg pressed against Steve's.

"Does that cover everything then?" Richards asked.

"I believe we have covered everything of note," Charles said. "We'll keep in touch of course."

"I'll make sure to keep my information the same," Fury said.

"You mean it changes?" Tony asked, making sure to sound shocked.

"You would know, Stark. You've got that worm in our system."

"JARVIS isn't a worm. He's more of a ghost."

Fury rolled his eye but didn't comment any further, evidently giving it up for lost. He nodded to the rest of the table before turning and leaving the room with a dramatic flick of his coat. Richards followed suit a few moments later.

"Before you leave," Charles said, stilling both Steve and Tony, "I wanted to congratulate you." He smiled at them. "It's a most auspicious event."

Tony glanced down at his ring. "Thanks."

"Have you set a date yet?"

"Not yet," Steve answered. "We've still got a lot on our plate."

"Take it from an old man," Charles said. "Don't put it off. You'll find that if you do, it's never likely to happen."

"You're not exactly old," Tony objected.

Charles's smile was wistful. "When I was young, World War II was raging and Hitler was rounding up the Jews. My closest, dearest friend…he was a Jew. We left many things to the future, expecting that some day they would come to pass. We never…we never expected to be at such odds now."

"Professor?" Steve sounded worried.

"It's nothing, Steve." Charles gave him a brighter smile. "But, please, remember what I said. Don't put it off."

"We won't," Steve promised.

"Charles," Tony began slowly, frowning slightly, "your friend… Is he Magneto?"

"As I said," Charles said quietly, "we never expected to be at such odds."

Tony swallowed. "I'm sorry."

"Think nothing of it." Charles's smile was noticeably weaker now. "I have long since come to terms with the mistakes the two of us made. I can only wait for a brighter world to form now with a new generation of heroes to usher it in.

"And that, gentlemen, falls to you."

* * *

A week later, Tony had made steady progress on his nano-suit after scrapping the original nano-fibers because he couldn't modify the original fabric. This particular nano-suit was Tony's own invention, weaving in energy conducting fibers with the nano-fibers that would work with the power source in his chest.

Since Extremis had modified his DNA and absorbed the arc reactor, Tony had a highly potent energy source just sitting in his chest that was doing practically nothing when he wasn't suited up. It _was_ spread throughout the rest of his body much like a circulatory system, though he hadn't yet figured out what the purpose of that was. The best he could theorize was that it had to do with powering his suit when it was in his bones and making sure it wouldn't be too heavy, though that was a ridiculous theory so he kept it largely to himself.

The point with the energy source was that since it was in his body, Tony wanted some way of harnessing it. At this point using the suit meant going naked and that meant the metal of the suit interacted directly with his skin and thus the energy of the former arc reactor. If he wanted to have a undersuit on (and he _did_), that would mean making the fabric conductible with vibranium so the Iron Man suit could still interface with the energy coursing through his body. The fabric also needed to be stored alongside the suit, but there was nothing Tony could do about this but trust that Hansen had gotten the coding right for something like that to work.

And the fact that he had to trust in someone _else_ was really disturbing him. Especially since that other person wasn't even that trustworthy to begin with. Tony couldn't exactly go up to Hansen and ask her how it worked. He suspected that she wasn't entirely certain of all the finer details of Extremis herself because working with human DNA always guaranteed a certain degree of unpredictability. And since human DNA was so unpredictable, that meant Extremis had to have some flexibility in order to adjust accordingly. If it was too rigid – if the coding didn't allow for any leeway at all – it was more likely to kill the user than keep them alive.

That was part of what Tony had done when fixing Extremis. Hansen's coding had made Extremis so rigid that when it interacted with human DNA, the whole thing spiraled into a vortex of self-destruction.

Then again, he'd been working under the presumption that Extremis would work with humans regardless of genetics. What Killian had told him had blown that belief out of the water. If a little quirk of genetics indicated whether or not Extremis would actually take, Tony had been far luckier than he'd ever realized. If he'd had the wrong combination of genes, then all the coding in the world wouldn't have saved his life.

Even then, look at Mallen. He'd been half-crazy with the amount of data Extremis was feeding him. Tony was used to it now (somewhat), but it had been awful in the beginning (he wouldn't think about _350,000 dead_) and it was only because of treating himself like a computer (which he _was_ now no matter what Steve said) that it was even manageable now.

Tony didn't know if anyone else was likely to survive Extremis, genetics or not. The amount of data it fed the human brain was too overwhelming for the average human to take. Then again, wasn't that what the 2% success rate was about? Weeding out the ordinary? Making sure that only the _extraordinary_ remained?

If one considered Tony the 2% success and Mallen part of the 98%, that drastically reduced the possibility of Extremis working for someone like Steve. Mallen had survived the procedure, but then he'd gone mad afterward. That wasn't exactly a _success_, and Killian had evidently noted that when he'd told Tony about the different versions of Extremis and _a little quirk of genetics_.

Philosophizing aside, Tony was resigned to being a computer now.

At least Extremis hadn't changed how he felt physically, because he could at least pretend he was human.

Outside of the nano-suit and Extremis, Tony had also gotten a call from Richards about fixing up the Bifrost. They were stuck now without a way of solidifying vibranium so that it could channel the power needed to make a bridge that could traverse entire worlds. Jane hadn't had much success either, so that meant that unless Tony somehow managed to contact Asgard with their findings, they couldn't get much further.

They'd gotten 90% of the data; the other 10% would have to be provided by Asgard.

* * *

Ten days after the meeting with Charles and the others, the team was watching _The Bourne Legacy_ and throwing popcorn at the screen during particularly improbable stunts and at the cute actor waltzing around the set who looked an awful lot like Clint.

"Not to burst anyone's bubble," Peter said lazily during one of the exposition scenes, "but when are we doing anything about HYDRA?" He was sitting on the floor in a lotus position.

"HYDRA's in Russia," Natasha said, stretched out on the couch with a bowl of popcorn on her stomach. Spike was sitting on her feet, slapping the popcorn bowl in excitement whenever an explosion happened. "Russia's not too fond of us on a good day."

"She means we can't go there just on the off chance HYDRA's base is in Russia," Steve said. He was relaxing on the loveseat with Tony, who was sitting in-between his legs and curled up against his chest.

"Isn't it?" Peter asked.

"Could be a trap," Clint said, sitting on top of a tall cabinet, another bowl of popcorn on his lap. "They were a bit obvious with failing to shoot Putin."

"That could be a trap, too," Tony pointed out. "A trap within a trap… But wait, that's giving them a bit too much credit."

"Don't be mean, Tony," Bruce said mildly, sitting in the only other armchair in the room. "That's hardly an ingenious trap."

"Actually, that is pretty ingenious," Natasha said, screwing her nose up as the Clint-lookalike performed some fancy tricks with a motorcycle. "Not something HYDRA is known for thinking up."

"Red Skull was the brains," Steve admitted. "I'm not sure about now."

"Madame Hydra?" Tony suggested.

"We don't know enough about her to say," Natasha said.

"Isn't that a point for her being clever?" Peter pointed out.

"Not that hard to evade S.H.I.E.L.D.," Tony said dismissively.

"For a genius, Tony," Bruce said. "And I was still on their radar."

"Your perception of the world is skewed, Tony," Clint said. "If someone like Madame Hydra is able to keep off S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar to the point that we only know a name, it means she's good. She's really good."

"In summary, we're not going to Russia," Peter said, sighing.

"Just about," Natasha agreed.

"I am, however, going to Mongolia," Tony said, blinking as some headlines made themselves known to him courtesy of Extremis.

"What?" Steve looked down at him. "Why?"

"Reports of my weapons being used there." Tony flicked his fingers, letting a tablet he'd stashed under the loveseat come floating into his hand. He pulled up the relevant news articles, letting Steve read them.

"It's worrying that you have a tablet like that just stashed under your seat," Clint observed.

"It's called being prepared."

"I call it tech-addicted."

"I _am_ tech."

"I am Iron Man," Clint mimicked him from several years earlier. "What's next? I'm Twilight Sparkle?"

Tony straightened as much as he could while wrapped up in Steve's arms. "I knew you were a secret Brony!"

Clint didn't hesitate. "What does that say about you since you knew who I was talking about?"

Natasha threw popcorn at both of them. "Shut up."

"When?" Steve asked Tony quietly, fingers still resting on the screen of the tablet.

"Tomorrow," Tony said, snuggling back against Steve's chest. "I've got the nano-suit ready; just to need to try it out."

"You mean you haven't even put it on?"

"I was a bit busy making sure that it would protect me." Tony shrugged lightly. "Just in case. If all else fails, I can always go naked with clothes stashed away."

"You're not going naked."

"I said I'll have clothes stashed away."

"In what? Your helmet?"

"I think I've got some space in a leg for a tight pair of pants and a shirt."

This time both of them were pelted with popcorn by Clint, the kernels hitting them in the foreheads. "I can hear you, you know. And that sounds just _wrong_."

Tony lifted a few popcorn kernels out of the bowl in Clint's lap and stuffed them down his shirt without even looking over.

"Are they always like this?" Peter whispered to Bruce.

"Yes." Bruce peered through his glasses at Tony and Clint, the light of the TV glinting off the lenses.

Tony fired off a mock salute and settled back against Steve, ignoring the small groans Clint made as he tried to fish popcorn from his shirt.

Tomorrow he'd have to get back to work and be Iron Man. Tonight he could just be Tony Stark, Avenger.

* * *

The next morning Steve joined Tony in his workshop to see if the nano-suit actually worked.

"Now the question is if I should first take the suit out and then put this one on, or if I should put this on first before taking out the suit," Tony mused, fingering the nano-suit.

"You mean you don't actually know?" Steve asked, alarmed.

"Unknown territory, Steve," Tony reminded him. "We don't know how Extremis works with these kinds of things. It might decide this isn't high-tech enough, and then I really will be naked."

"You're not going to be naked. You're taking clothes."

"I'd rather not since I'd prefer to have something like mini-bombs in that leg." Letting the soft black material sift through his fingers one last time, Tony sighed lightly. "Okay, here goes nothing."

"What?" Steve watched in alarm as Tony stripped methodically out of all his clothes.

**_Take it _alllll _off!_** Dummy cheered, claw clacking together excitedly.

"Calm down, Dummy," Tony said, shucking off his boxers last of all. "Steve, here." He thrust the nano-suit at Steve.

"What are you doing?" Steve asked.

"Taking the suit out first; I'd rather do this right from the beginning." Tony focused on the feeling of the suit in his bones, calling it forth so it seeped out through his pores and solidified over his skin. Once the entire suit was out, he focused on taking it off _outside_ of his body.

The suit disassembled itself and reformed several feet away, its visage imposing.

"Victory!" Tony grinned, reaching out for the undersuit Steve was letting hang from his hands. "Come on, Steve."

"You're sure about this?" Steve asked nervously.

"Absolutely." Tony began pulling the undersuit on, slipping his ankles in and then tugging it over his legs. The suit slid on easily enough, only snagging in a few places before he straightened it out. "Help me with the arms."

Steve pulled lightly on the cloth, heaving it up over his shoulders and zipping it up in the back. "Good?"

"Great. Let me just…" Tony adjusted it so his groin wasn't so cramped. "Okay, it's good now. Now the big question."

"Will Extremis absorb it?" JARVIS said for him.

"Bingo." Tony moved around, stretching a bit to be sure the undersuit was fitted correctly. It was the same size as his previous undersuits so it wasn't like he'd sized it wrong, but one could never be too careful. "Let's go."

Focusing on the feel of the suit, Tony sunk back slightly into Extremis, letting its buzzing come more to the front. Then he focused on drawing _in_, willing the suit to come into him.

He felt a weird tickling sensation for a few seconds before it entirely disappeared and Steve let out a low gasp.

"Did it work?" Tony let Extremis go, looking down at his body to find that he was once again naked. "Okay, that answers that. Let's see if I can pull it back out."

The nano-suit came out easily, melting out of his pores and reforming smoothly over his skin. "Yahtzee!" Flushed with success, he reached out for the Iron Man suit, settling into a fighting stance as the metal pieces flew to him and assembled around his body.

As soon as the faceplate clicked into place, Tony whipped around to his testing area of the lab and fired a repulsor. It worked without a hitch, and since he was focusing, he could even feel the stream of power from his chest as it fed into his repulsor.

"Sweet!" Tony gave a fist bump, uncaring of how it would look in the Iron Man suit.

Turning, he saw Steve giving him a fond grin. The bots were dancing little circles behind him, evidently just as gleeful as Tony.

He focused on drawing just the Iron Man suit into his bones. A few seconds later he looked down to see that it had worked and the power source was glowing blue through the cloth of the undersuit. Then, uncaring of his nakedness, he pulled the undersuit in, too, testing to see if he felt any different with both the undersuit and the Iron Man suit in his bones.

"Everything registers as normal on my sensors, sir," JARVIS said. "Of course, that is with regular parameters."

"I feel good," Tony said, bouncing up and down slightly on his feet. He drew the undersuit back out, letting it cover him from ankles to neck to wrists. "Look good?"

"Always," Steve responded.

"The Captain is biased," JARVIS said, "but I find I must agree with him on this."

"Shush, JARVIS," Tony said, grinning at Steve. "Let us live in the moment."

Steve grinned back, stepping forward and leaning down to give him a warm kiss. He pulled back a moment later to plant another one on the tip of Tony's nose. "You'll stay safe, right?" he asked quietly.

Tony reached up to squeeze the nape of Steve's neck. "Do my best." He reached out to the side, taking the silver chain Dummy was holding out for him.

"Tony?" Steve watched in confusion as Tony took his ring off and strung it on the chain before putting it around his neck and locking the clasp.

"Just for safety," Tony said, smiling softly. "Don't wanna lose it."

Steve laughed lowly. "You are amazing." He drew Tony back into a deeper kiss, sucking on his lower lip.

Tony pulled back slightly, breath coming heavily. "Don't start something you don't intend to finish," he chided.

"Who said I don't intend to finish?" Steve went for another kiss, only to meet with Tony's cheek when the other turned his head.

"Lovely sentiment," Tony said, breath hitching as Steve nibbled on the tip of his ear, "but not the best"—his breath hitched again as Steve pulled lightly on his earlobe—"time for this. I'm leaving soon."

Steve pulled back, reluctance etched over his features. "Right."

"I'll make it up when I get back," Tony promised.

"With interest."

"With interest," Tony agreed charitably. "Not that it's much hardship."

Steve stooped down for another kiss, sucking on Tony's tongue for a minute before he pulled away and said hoarsely, "I'll stop now. Go and take care of what you need to. Just stay safe."

Tony cleared his throat, forcing himself to think about Nick Fury in a bathing suit. "Absolutely."

Steve studied his face. "You're thinking about Fury in a bathing suit, aren't you?"

Tony screwed up his face. "Got it in one."

* * *

Once he was in the air, Tony let loose with his suit, pouring on the speed. He broke the sound barrier within seconds, faintly hearing the boom it made.

He whooped in excitement. It had been months since he'd managed to do anything like this, and he'd _missed_ it.

After the first three hundred miles, Tony slowed down, the worst of his restlessness left behind. There was no need to go full speed to his destination; it wasn't like they'd move far. Besides, it'd be night in Mongolia by the time he arrived, and while he was usually one for ostentatious entrances, this wasn't time for it.

Some hours later, he tamped down on the speed even further as he reached the site where the media had reports of fighting.

"JARVIS?" he asked, eyes flickering across the HUD and the different readings it was showing.

"Everything clear, sir."

Tony hovered over an oddly quiet village. "No civilians?"

"I am picking up several heat signs, but not enough to indicate that the village is fully occupied."

Which meant that the bad guys had made this their base. Without any civilians to terrorize or persuade to keep quiet, they didn't have to waste ammo.

_Unlike Gulmira…_ Casting the memory aside, Tony focused on the present. If he was quick, he could be done with this in an hour and then head back home.

"Give me the specs if you've got 'em."

The blueprints of the different weapons that the men here were using popped up on the HUD. These weapons were older than what he usually ran into during these forays. It meant they were less stable. He'd have to be more careful when destroying them.

Slowly cutting power to his repulsors, Tony flew closer to the ground, eventually cutting power altogether and landing lightly.

There was no indication that anyone had noticed his arrival. The heat spots indicating human presences blinked slowly on his HUD, unmoving. Some were close to the weapons he was going to destroy, but he had no qualms about injuring or possibly killing them. If they were using Stark weaponry, they knew full well the possible ramifications of that; the last several years should have been enough proof of what he would do to contain their use.

The first house he destroyed was empty of all but caches of guns and bullets. It went up in a brilliant display of orange fire that lit up the night sky and the surroundings. It also alerted the men to his presence.

Ignoring the shouts that filled the night, Tony moved on to the next house that held weapons. This one held bombs, and he put a little distance between himself and it before blowing it all to hell with a few high-powered rockets.

The explosion it caused was immense, blowing apart nearby houses. There was screaming now, but no one was actually dead according to his sensors.

The last thing he destroyed was a heavy artillery tank, and for that he used a combination of telekinesis and Extremis, carelessly flicking through the machinery and electronics before completely crushing the entire thing with a mental hand.

"All weapons have been destroyed," JARVIS reported.

"Looks good." Tony worked his hand a few times, shaking off the feeling of crushing the machinery of the artillery tank beneath his fingers as if it was just paper.

Angry shouting came from behind him, and Tony turned to show the men the terrifying blank stare of the Iron Man mask. Noting the guns they were sporting, he ripped them out of their hands and threw them into the fire that still raged from the bombs he had set off.

"Oops," he said, shrugging. "I'd say sorry, but I'm really not." He grinned behind his mask before firing his repulsors and taking off into the air.

He was almost out the village when his sensors registered a pinging off his armor. The HUD sensors showed it had been a bullet fired at him (and whose bright idea was _that_? A bullet against the Iron Man armor?).

"JARVIS?" Tony asked, frowning.

"It appears to have been shot from a sniper rifle, sir."

Mention of a sniper rifle had the memory of the recent briefing they'd just had about the Winter Soldier flash through his mind. But this was Mongolia, not Russia…

But hadn't he _just_ suggested it was possible HYDRA had set a trap within a trap? By failing to assassinate the Russian president, they had shown that they were present in Russia and also hinted that their base was in Russia; yet the assassination had _failed_, and that indicated the base wouldn't be in Russia because that would've been too obvious. But since HYDRA knew S.H.I.E.L.D. would come to that conclusion, they had gone and set up base in Russia after all.

But what if they _hadn't_? What if they'd gone and laid a trap within a trap within a trap (confusing, yes; he was getting dizzy himself)? With HYDRA thinking it likely that the Avengers (and _Tony_) would believe that HYDRA's actual base was in Russia after all, they could easily put their base elsewhere to throw them off. Like, say…Mongolia (fucking _A.I.M._). Maybe they'd even supplied a terrorist cell with obsolete Stark weaponry and told them to go crazy with it.

And put the Winter Soldier right there, too.

"Fuck," he muttered finally, eyes sweeping over the rooftops. He couldn't see anything, but that didn't mean much.

There was another ping as a bullet ricocheted off his chest plate.

Was the guy stupid? If regular bullets had ever threatened Iron Man, Tony would've hung up the suit a long time ago.

"Sir," JARVIS said, "I would advise not going after the Winter Soldier."

"I know, I know." Tony let the repulsors propel him straight up into the sky. "Still…it doesn't seem right."

Famous last words, because at that moment there was a spike in the humming in his mind. Used to the sound as he was, Tony almost didn't register it.

But then something hit him in the shoulder. And it stuck fast.

"What—" Tony broke off into screaming as whatever had been shot at him disabled Extremis and sent him plummeting to the ground like a stone.

Mind wracked with pain, it was all Tony could do to soften his landing with a short burst of telekinesis. It still hurt when he hit the ground, and he registered that his suit was _gone_.

No, not gone. It was in his bones.

And yet he couldn't access it. Extremis wasn't responding. It was crippled, and the device that had done it was still attached to his shoulder like a leech.

Tony rolled onto his stomach, one hand futilely gripping his head as the other groped for his shoulder. He needed it _off_.

That was the last thing he thought before he felt something else prick him in the neck and he fell into darkness.

* * *

When he woke up, it was absolutely silent. There was no humming, no data feeds, and no buzzing where Extremis should be.

What he did have was a terribly dry mouth and an awful headache.

Repressing a groan, Tony put a hand to his head, pressing it into his forehead as he tried to will away the pain. Unfortunately, he wasn't Charles and couldn't just isolate the pain to a small corner of his brain to forget about. He could push it back, but it would continue to pound dully at his temples, slowing down his thoughts and making it difficult to move.

Inhaling deeply, Tony opened his eyes, blinking as he was met with dimmed lights in a barren room that was just cragged rock save for the bed he lay on (which was just a mattress really, and not even a very good one). Breathing deeply in through his nose and out through his mouth, Tony carefully sat up, swallowing back nausea as his stomach threatened to revolt.

Whatever they had tranqued him with was a doozy.

Slumping forward to press his hands together tightly, Tony tried to organize his thoughts. Whoever had him (probably HYDRA) had suppressed his telekinesis with the same kind of medicine that had been used when he'd been captured by A.I.M. They'd also suppressed Extremis, but thankfully without pain this time.

Furrowing his brow, Tony focused on where Extremis usually was, trying to bring it out. He regretted it immediately when blinding pain tore through his mind and lights burst into stars behind his eyelids.

Letting Extremis go immediately, Tony breathed a sigh of relief as the pain subsided slightly.

That wasn't something he'd be repeating.

But speaking of Extremis… Tony glanced down, amused to find that he'd been given thin, flimsy clothes. Inhibiting Extremis would mean that his undersuit would also retreat into his bones. And his ring… His ring was _gone_.

Tony's fingers pressed tightly against his sternum at the exact spot where the ring had been touching his skin. He couldn't get rid of the dazed realization that they'd _taken _it. The one thing of Steve that he had on him, and it was _gone_.

Thinking of Steve had Tony cringing, and not because of the lost ring. Steve wouldn't be pleased with this entire situation. Tony had promised to do his best to stay safe, and this wasn't exactly being _safe_. In fact, what he _should_ have done was hightail it out of Mongolia the moment he'd destroyed the weapons. He shouldn't have stayed behind while bullets pinged off his armor; that had just given the Winter Soldier enough time to hit him with that Extremis-inhibiting device.

Then again, hindsight was always 20/20.

There was nothing he could do about it now. He had to focus on how he was going to get out of here without telekinesis or Extremis. He'd done it before with only his brains, but it wasn't very likely these people would give him the materials he needed. They knew full well what he could do with a simple box of scraps (build an arc reactor).

Swinging his legs around so he was sitting properly on the mattress, Tony squeezed his eyes shut tightly, swallowing convulsively as if he was sick. He wasn't – not really – but it was better to keep his cards close to his chest. To further the illusion that he was sick, he scooted backwards (and for the record, _ow_ – the mattress had some really poky springs) and leaned heavily against the wall.

The sicker they thought he was, the better his chances of escaping.

Focusing on breathing and keeping his mental fingers_ off_ Extremis, Tony waited.

It didn't take long before his patience was rewarded and there was a click at the door as it was unlocked. It would seem that his hearing was still above average even with Extremis inhibited. That hopefully meant his enhanced strength and speed were also still there.

He didn't move, waiting to see what the other person would do.

"Get up."

Not startling, Tony opened his eyes slowly, dropping his chin down to look right at the speaker. A HYDRA goon stood there, his mask looming down at Tony.

"Mind giving me a pair of shoes?" Tony asked congenially, wiggling his bare toes demonstratively.

The HYDRA goon didn't sigh, but Tony got the impression he wanted to. A minute later someone from outside handed the goon a pair of flimsy flip-flops that wouldn't give his feet any protection at all.

Giving the flip-flops a disdainful look, Tony took them from the goon and slipped them on, standing up from the bed.

The goon gestured for him to step outside. Once he did so, two other goons grabbed hold of his arms and made sure he wouldn't be going anywhere.

Not that he'd _intended_ to.

Only an idiot would go running off with absolutely no data.

"I feel so special," Tony quipped, relaxing his arms as one goon tightened his grip warningly.

None of them responded, and they pushed him forward to begin marching through the rocky tunnels. The floor gradually sloped upward, and soon they reached a door that led to a normal looking room. The goon that input the code to open the door made no move to hide his motions from Tony.

That alone sent nervousness skittering down Tony's spine. They hadn't blindfolded him or done anything else to impede him from making note of his surroundings and possible escape routes. The fact that they hadn't done so either meant they didn't feel at all threatened by him or there was no _need_ for them to feel threatened by him.

Tony hoped it was the former and not the latter. He could deal with them underestimating him. He couldn't deal with them killing him.

They pushed him into the room. It was large and completely windowless. There weren't any electrical lights, only torches and candles. It gave the entire room an eerie glow.

As they passed a torch, Tony saw the chillingly familiar insignia on the wall behind it.

_The Ten Rings?!_

Desperately trying not to give away his trepidation, Tony had to struggle not to remember foul water and electricity sparking through a car battery and shocking his body. He tried not to remember working by flickering lights and hammering metal into a mask that would form part of the first Iron Man suit he had ever created.

Distracted by his thoughts, Tony almost missed checking where he was being led. He was startled out of his thoughts by metal enclosing his wrists and clicking shut, cuffing his hands behind his back. Then rough hands shoved him to his knees. The two goons remained standing by his shoulders.

Breath quickening, Tony looked up at the table where two people sat at opposite ends, apparently engaged in a game of chess. It was all for show, though; Tony could tell that neither of them was actually as engaged in the game as their faces would suggest they were.

Another man stood in the shadows behind the table. Torchlight glinted off a mental arm, and Tony's breath caught at his first viewing of the Winter Soldier in person.

Then his attention turned back to the two people at the table as the one on the right moved. She cast off her cloak, letting it fall back onto the chair as she stood. Her long black hair shone in the torchlight, and her eyes glittered with menace. Her mouth curved into a sultry smirk as she looked at Tony; her clothes accentuated her curves and the weapons strapped to her thighs.

The other person sitting at the table didn't move, but Tony saw ten rings glinting off each of his fingers. The reminder that his engagement ring was missing had his breath catching in his throat, and his eyes went back to meet the woman's.

"Tony Stark." Her voice was soft. "Iron Man." She went up to him, trailing her fingers through his hair teasingly. "I wondered when I would meet you."

"Hope I satisfy," Tony managed, thankful his voice revealed none of his fear.

"Oh, you do." She sounded gleeful. "You do." She looked down at him. "Do you know who I am?"

Tony chanced a guess. "Madame Hydra."

Her grin was pleased. "You _do_ know then! This makes it so much better."

"What exactly?" Tony asked. "You've got me here, but I haven't a clue why."

"In two thousand nine, the Ten Rings captured you by order of Obadiah Stane," Madame Hydra said smoothly, ignoring the faint twitch Tony was unable to repress. "That it was you they had captured was a surprise. They were unable to keep hold of you. In two thousand twelve, HYDRA tried again. You escaped once more. And in October and November, A.I.M. failed yet again."

Her lips curved into a smug smile. "But then you helped us, fixing the Extremis program so we could use it."

"It doesn't actually _work_," Tony objected. "There's only a two percent chance anyone survives. Besides…" He gave a small grin. "That little program I wrote back then…you really think it was a one-shot kind of deal? Doesn't matter that it's been months now; you plug Extremis into _anything_, it's going to be wiped out."

Madame Hydra's face twisted slightly, evidently displeased. "That may be," she said lowly, "but the point is that we have devices that can cripple Extremis. Or have you not noticed?"

"I noticed," Tony said. "Kind of hard not to."

"Now," Madame Hydra said, "I'm aware you don't 'negotiate with terrorists.'" Her lips twisted as she said the words Tony had spoken so long ago to M.O.D.O.K. "I know that you will never cooperate with us; as such, it is useless for us to keep you here alive. But then," she continued, "it was not my decision to bring you here." She gestured back at the person still sitting at the table. "The Mandarin would speak with you."

"The Mandarin?"

Tony's question went unanswered as Madame Hydra returned to her seat, reclining in it with an air of carelessness. At the same time, the person at the other end flipped his hood back, revealing harsh Chinese features and black hair tied back into a ponytail.

"Oh." Tony refrained from saying he'd expected some sort of fruit; that sort of quip wouldn't get him anywhere right now.

"The Ten Rings," the Mandarin said slowly, standing up as he did, "falls under my purview." His fingers clenched and unclenched, the rings glistening in the torchlight.

"Okay." Tony swallowed dryly, his hands twitching nervously behind him.

"I am aware you have a great distaste for magic," the Mandarin said, a smirk curving his lips. "Yet you fight with a god, a god who wields the power of thunder and lightning."

"Technically," Tony said, "magic is science up on Asgard."

"And yet their science is magic down here. Strange, do you not think?" The Mandarin locked his hands behind his back, glowering down at Tony. "I have traveled much of the world in my quest for power. On one of my journeys, I found these." He brought his right hand up, fingers curling in the air to display the five rings on that hand. "Strange, marvelous things… Wonders of science, and yet they are magical."

"Only because we don't know how they work."

"We will never know how they work." The Mandarin's voice was sharp. "Such things are not for us to know."

Tony inhaled slowly. "You mean you don't want anyone else to have what you do. Because with knowledge comes power, and we can use that power to recreate what you're wearing."

"A man of science to your core. And yet I wonder why you will not release your arc reactor to us."

"Might be because you'll make a weapon out of it." Tony was unable to keep the rebuke out of his tone. "I'm out of that business, have been for a while."

"Yet you _are_ a weapon." The Mandarin sounded wondering as he looked down at Tony as if he was a particularly intriguing specimen. "What you hate, you now are."

"I consider myself a shield." Tony smiled flatly. "A shield against men like you." His eyes flickered to Madame Hydra, who was inspecting something in her hands with a bored look on her face. "And her."

"Your Captain America…" The Mandarin snorted lightly. "He _has_ a shield. And you would purport that your suit and your power are shields? You wield them as weapons – swords. I do not think kindly of liars."

"That's fine. I don't think kindly of terrorists."

"No, you wouldn't," the Mandarin conceded. "Not with your history. Despite your history of warfare and bloodshed, you are a man of science. Even now, you seek to recreate the Bifrost."

Tony stiffened slightly.

"It cannot be done," the Mandarin said. "It is a fool's errand, Iron Man."

"We're close," Tony said evenly. "You keep saying I'm a man of science. You mind if I tell you what I think you are?" He didn't wait for an answer. "You're a man of terror. You shroud yourself in mystery and like to call it magic." He cast the ten rings a look of disdain. "In the end all you do is strike fear in the heart of others. You don't actually accomplish anything because humans will always rise above what you try to do to us. Fear can only stop us for so long. When it doesn't anymore, we strike back hard."

The Mandarin said nothing for several minutes, his dark eyes simply studying Tony.

Tony kept his breathing calm, his eyes meeting the Mandarin's defiantly.

"I see." The Mandarin's voice was quiet. "You are the heart."

Tony frowned, confused. "What?"

"What is a body without its heart?" the Mandarin mused. "Shall we see?"

"If I may," Madame Hydra said, coming up behind the Mandarin now. Something dangled from her fingers: Tony's engagement ring.

The Mandarin gestured dismissively.

Tony's breath caught as Madame Hydra stooped to clasp the chain around Tony's neck, lips brushing his ears as she whispered, "Such a lovely ring. Your Captain is a handsome one." She drew back to look into Tony's eyes. "You are a very lucky man."

Tony kept his voice even through sheer force of will. "I know."

"Step back," the Mandarin said. "We shall see what the Avengers are with their heart dead. We failed once, but now there is no possibility of failure."

Oh shit, oh shit, _oh shit_.

"You sure killing me is the way to go?" Tony rasped, leaning back as far as he could considering he was kneeling.

"Believe me, Iron Man." The Mandarin's smile was dark. "Death is a mercy. You are what holds us all back."

"Funny thing that. I consider myself more a futurist—" Tony broke off as one goon whacked him warningly with the butt of a gun. "Point taken," he gasped, wincing.

"Goodbye, Iron Man." The Mandarin's hands hovered directly before Tony's face. "I regret that it has come to this."

A faint sound of distress escaped Tony's lips as the Mandarin's fingers dug directly into the skin around his energy source. Electricity blazed across his senses, tearing a scream out of his throat.

And then he was spinning through a vortex, something roaring in his ears. There was nothing but blue around him, and he was hurtling through it so quickly he was having trouble breathing.

This wasn't death, was it? Reports of people suffering near-death experiences all said it was peaceful. It was just a light at the end of the tunnel. It was painless in the end.

This wasn't painless at all. This was screaming in his ears; this was power tearing through his veins; this was him being thrown about by forces he had no control over.

Maybe the Mandarin had lied. Maybe he didn't want to kill Tony. Maybe he'd drugged him.

It wasn't actually killing the heart of the Avengers (and seriously, _what_?) if he was drugged to the gills. And why the hell was _he_ the heart? Steve was more hearty than Tony, especially since he'd never had heart trouble! Or, at least, not after the super-soldier serum. Tony was a pain in the ass; he wasn't exactly the _heart_ of the team.

Suddenly he was spat out of the vortex into freezing cold air. He was aware that he was screaming, but couldn't seem to make himself stop.

Then he crashed into freezing snow.

Although cold, the snow was soft enough that he felt no pain from the landing. Wheezing and gasping for air, Tony flailed, trying to right himself (somewhere, somehow, he'd lost the handcuffs).

He ended up slipping and sliding down the snow bank he'd landed in, eventually coming to a stop on a flat plain of ground that still had a foot of snow covering it. Snow was down his shirt and in his pants and he'd lost his flip-flops (no great loss, really).

Still gasping, Tony brushed snow out of his hair and shook his shirt out, tingles running through his fingers and making it difficult for him to grasp hold of the thin cloth. He shook out his pants, clearing as much of the snow as he could.

"Jesus _Christ_," he muttered, rubbing his hands together. They were tingling with energy and his chest wasn't much better, the energy source burning hot and warming the skin around it.

Slowly running his fingers over his face and then checking to make sure his ring was still there, Tony breathed out a sigh of relief. "Well, still alive. But in Antarctica from the looks of it." He squinted out into the darkness. "It's Antarctica, right?"

Unthinkingly, he reached for Extremis. He cringed a second later, expecting pain. When none came, he slowly prodded at Extremis again, cautious now.

No pain.

Tony took a breath and jumped into Extremis, frowning when absolutely no data met his senses other than his own bodily functions (cold and rather shocked but otherwise fine). Further inspection showed that Extremis wasn't damaged, there was just nothing there for it to pick up.

Yet if Extremis was working now, he could at least wear something other than these clothes. The moment the undersuit went on over his skin, Tony could already feel the difference. The only problem was his feet.

Rubbing his hands over his arms, Tony looked down at his bare feet, frowning. A moment later he exhaled in shock upon seeing how the undersuit looked through the papery clothes he was still wearing. It wasn't exactly black anymore. In the center was the energy source, but blue lines were creeping out of it and trailing down his arms and his legs and across his chest. And they were _moving_.

Running light fingers across the material, he found that it still felt normal. It was only how it looked that was throwing Tony for a loop. Frowning, he took his hands out from under the shirt, rubbing his fingers together.

He _had_ wanted it to conduct energy…

Blowing out another cloud of air, Tony focused on seeing if his telekinesis worked. He narrowed in on a bank of snow, firing a mental blast. It was gratifying to see the snow spray outward when he succeeded.

Whatever the Mandarin had done, Tony now had full control of Extremis and his telekinesis. The only issue now was where he was.

Uncaring of the ridiculous clothes he wore, Tony pulled out the Iron Man suit, exhaling slightly in relief as the metal enclosed him, shielding him from the cold. He couldn't feel the biting wind anymore, and snowflakes no longer hit him in the face.

The HUD flickered to life around him, giving him a night view of his surroundings. He wasn't very surprised to see nothing but snow and more snow around him.

"JARVIS," Tony said, "mind giving me a sit-rep?"

When no reply was forthcoming, Tony repeated his request. When JARVIS still didn't respond, Tony didn't want to admit he panicked (which he did, just a little bit), but he wasn't okay by any stretch of the imagination. He inspected the suit's circuitry and systems, only to come up empty handed when everything came back green.

JARVIS…just wasn't there anymore.

"It's okay, it's okay," he muttered to himself, blinking rapidly as he shifted through his options. "Let's just try and find home. Where are we?"

The suit's sensors didn't give him any answers no matter how much he adjusted them. Finally, scowling, he stretched out with Extremis to access the satellites.

Only to end up floundering when there was nothing there. He drew back into his body, shivering slightly as he desperately tried to figure out what it all meant.

There were no data feeds, and this was likely due to the fact that there were no satellites. There was nothing _else_ either. The only humming Tony could sense was his suit, and there no words for how comforting it was. But the suit was coming up blank on his location, and that was impossible because he had maps for every single location on Earth stored in its memory banks. If the suit couldn't pinpoint his location, he wasn't in a place that humans had discovered.

Or maybe he wasn't even on Earth anymore.

* * *

Unlike the months when he and Tony had been…_estranged_…Tony's absence now wasn't as noticeable as it had been before. It was still _there_ – Steve still missed him – but it wasn't as _bad_. Steve knew he'd be coming home, so it wasn't like he missed him like he'd lost an arm (or his heart actually).

In fact, it had been about a year since the last time Tony had to do anything weapons-related on the other side of the ocean. Steve had thought that was over and done with, but apparently he'd counted his chickens too soon.

"No sulking," Clint said an hour into Tony's absence, poking his head into the living room where Steve was most definitely _not_ sulking.

"I'm not sulking."

"No, really?" Clint sounded skeptical. "Because it kind of looks like you're sulking. You've got that brooding thing going on."

"I don't _brood_."

"You do." Clint sat down on the armrest next to Steve, looking down at him. "Wanna talk about it?"

Steve shook his head. "There's nothing to talk about."

"Oh right. You're just sulking because it's the new thing to do."

"There's nothing to sulk about."

"Your fiancé's flitted off to Mongolia."

Steve felt a thrill run through him at that word: _fiancé_. "That's fine. He has work to do there."

"Funny thing," Clint mused, folding his arms and staring off into the distance. "Mongolia's awfully close to Russia, and these reports coming so close to Putin's attempted assassination…"

Steve looked up at him, alarm streaking through him. "You think it's a trap?"

Clint considered the question. "Honestly? I'd say no. It's just my paranoia speaking. Some things are just coincidences."

"There aren't many of those in our line of work."

"Also true." Clint made a face. "But I'd rather just give this the benefit of the doubt. Tony's done stuff like this before and nothing's happened."

"That was before everyone knew he was a mutant and had Extremis."

"He was also a desired billionaire with a _brilliant_ brain." Clint hummed appreciatively. "Seriously, Steve, I don't think you know just how amazing his brain really is. If you ever tell him any of this," he said suddenly, "I will end you."

Steve shook his head. "I won't."

Clint nodded, then continued ruminatively, "There aren't a lot of people with Tony's IQ. Bruce is one, but he's kind of focused on just one area. So's Reed. Tony's all over the place. If he wants to learn something, he'll do it. My point's that with that kind of a brain, Tony's been on a lot of lists ever since he built that first circuit board at four years old."

"That doesn't make me feel any better." Steve slumped back against the couch. "Learning he's not going to be safe _regardless_ of what happens doesn't help at all."

"It wasn't supposed to. Consider it info." Clint shrugged lightly. "You can always use it."

Steve had already known his boyfriend – _fiancé_ – was a super genius. Charles Xavier admitting he couldn't get a clear read on Tony's brain was just more evidence of that. But that didn't make it any easier knowing that Tony was out there in Mongolia without Steve. Especially now that Clint had pointed out how close Mongolia was to Russia.

The last time Tony had to take care of rogue Stark weapons had been before Steve and Tony had started dating. That was over a year ago. Considering that, Steve was getting a bad feeling.

"Probably nothing to worry about," Clint said consolingly, patting Steve on the head like a dog. "JARVIS?"

"He is still currently en route to Mongolia," JARVIS said. "I will, of course, inform you if his status in any way changes."

"See?" Clint patted Steve again, ignoring the evil eye he received. "Nothing to worry about. We're good. Wanna see some _Top Gear_?"

Steve knocked Clint's hand away. "I prefer _Mythbusters_."

Rather than any of those choices, JARVIS turned the TV onto some cartoon show about a kid with ghost powers.

Taking the hint for what it was, Steve settled down to watch some mindless cartoons with Clint.

* * *

Several hours later, Steve and Clint had been joined by Natasha, Bruce, and Peter. Peter had exclaimed softly upon seeing the show – _Danny Phantom_ – and settled down to watch it eagerly. Apparently it had been a show he'd seen when it was still airing.

They were on an episode where the main characters were facing a ghost that controlled technology when JARVIS spoke, sounding anxious, "Mr. Stark has been attacked."

Steve jolted upright. "What?"

"Extremis has been fully disabled. I cannot see what is happening."

"Get your equipment," Steve ordered, already on his feet. "We're meeting on the Quinjet in five."

In five minutes, he met the rest of his team out on the lawn directly before the Quinjet. Peter was also there in his uniform.

"I'm coming with," he said resolutely, face forbidding any arguments. "I can't do anything useful here."

Steve had neither the desire nor the energy to argue with Peter, and apparently neither did anybody else.

"Taking off in one," Clint said, already buckled in and checking the status of the engines and computers. "JARVIS?"

"Present," JARVIS said through the speakers at the front. "I will lay in the trajectory to his last known location."

"Do you know happened?" Steve asked, fingers digging into the straps of his shield now that he was buckled in.

"We were unable to track the attacker, but Mr. Stark and myself were of the opinion that it was the Winter Soldier."

"Shit," Clint cursed from the front.

"There's no such thing as coincidences," Steve muttered bitterly.

"There is," Bruce said evenly, picking at the plain white shirt he wore in case of a Hulk out. "We're just very, very unlucky."

"This was a trap," Natasha said, glancing back. "It might've been a joking matter before, but HYDRA's upped their game."

"I hate to say this, Steve, but even at our top speed, we're not going to make it to Mongolia until four o'clock our time," Clint said. "We're going to need a plan. Tony's not going to still be where JARVIS last had contact with him."

"If I may," JARVIS said, "I overheard one of Mr. Stark's and Mr. Logan's conversations. They were discussing a device Professor Xavier possesses that has the capacity to sense mutants."

"It'll pick up where Tony is," Steve said, relieved. He pulled out his phone.

"You get reception up here?" Peter asked, surprised.

Steve didn't grace him a reply, scrolling through his contacts until he came across Charles's.

"I forgot," Peter said after a moment of silence. "Stark-made."

"Exactly," Bruce agreed, sounding amused.

Charles answered on the fifth ring. "_Steve?_"

"I heard you have something that can sense mutants," Steve said without preamble.

Charles didn't sound at all bemused at Steve's knowledge. "_I do. Has something happened?_"

"Tony's in Mongolia, and we think HYDRA got to him. I – we were hoping you could pinpoint his location."

"_Of course, Steve._" Charles sounded concerned. "_I'll get back to you within the hour. Am I right in assuming this is the number to reach you at?_"

"Yes," Steve said. "Gets reception anywhere."

"_Of course it does._" Charles's tone had turned amused. "_One hour, Steve._" He hung up.

"We good?" Clint asked.

"Yeah." Steve laid the phone on his thigh, returning to clutching his shield. "He'll call in an hour."

"Okay then." Clint's breath left him in a low whoosh. "Settle back. This is gonna get bumpy."

There was a brief jolt, and Steve was vaguely aware that they had just broken the sound barrier. "You couldn't do that before?"

"Not over a residential area, Steve," Natasha said. "We're out over open sea now."

"I'm pretty sure I heard Tony breaking the sound barrier when he left," Peter observed.

"Tony makes his own rules," Clint said. "I'd rather not have the Air Force down on my head for violating airspace regulations."

"It is a law," JARVIS added. "It is just one Mr. Stark pays attention to only some of the time. This was not one of those times."

"Not unexpected," Natasha said. She glanced over at Clint. "Wanna see if we can break the record for crossing the Atlantic?"

"I think that's held by Iron Man," Clint said, "but hell yeah."

"When did that happen?" Peter asked. "I think I would've noticed a change in the books."

"We don't talk about that time," Bruce said. "It was a drunken bet."

"Tony bet he could fly faster than Thor," Clint said. "Through cheating, he did."

"I thought you couldn't get Norse gods drunk."

"You can't. But a drunk Tony Stark isn't one you want to go up against," Natasha said. "Which is why we don't talk about it."

"Just that he broke the record," Clint said. "Man, that was epic."

"We don't talk about it," Bruce said evenly.

"He used Hulk, didn't he?" Peter asked. "And Hulk went along with it."

Bruce pinched his lips together, not answering Peter's entirely too accurate guess.

Steve found himself incapable of joining the lighthearted banter. His stomach was twisted up in knots and he was finding it difficult to breathe. He'd just gotten Tony _back_. Couldn't they have a break? Was it too much to ask for?

_ "Don't put it off. You'll find that if you do, it's never likely to happen."_

Steve really hoped that he wouldn't regret waiting.

* * *

One nerve-wracking hour later, Steve picked up Charles's call, heart pounding painfully against his ribs.

Charles spoke before Steve could say anything, "_He's still in Mongolia, but underground. It appears to be an old facility in the steppes. It's not one that any legal authority set up._"

"Just like November," Steve said, mouth dry.

"_Indeed,_" Charles agreed somberly. "_I'll keep an eye on him, Steve. Should I assume a communications blackout from here?_"

"I'll call you," Steve said. "Can you send the coordinates to my e-mail? JARVIS will pick it up."

"_Already done, Steve. Good luck._"

"Thanks." Steve hung up, tucking the phone into its pouch. "JARVIS, did you get that?"

"Indeed, Captain. The new coordinates have already been input into the navigation system."

"I've got it," Clint confirmed.

Steve could feel the Quinjet shifting slightly as it adjusted its course. "How long?"

"ETA still hasn't changed." Clint sounded apologetic.

"We can't break the laws of physics," Bruce said. "It'll be fine, Steve."

Steve smiled wanly, leaning his head back against the headrest. "One can hope."

* * *

Despite Steve's nerves, he managed to get some sleep on the flight. He also made the others sleep, having Clint and Natasha trade off shifts so they could both get some rest as well. Peter and Bruce slept deeply for the few hours they caught; Steve's sleep was restless. Clint and Natasha treated it with the cold ruthless efficiency they treated everything on a mission with.

A cold blue sky greeted them as they touched down in the Mongolian steppes close to the coordinates Charles had given them. Clint had set the Quinjet down a mile away from their actual destination, not wanting to give the game away too early.

"Probably useless anyway," Clint said as he unbuckled. "Still, can't hurt to be safe."

Steve tugged on his cowl as he stepped outside, unflinching as the cold air nipped at his nose. Peter already had his mask on and was tugging nervously at the top, adjusting it so it rested smoothly over his head.

"I'm just gonna hang back," Bruce said, gesturing at his very human body. He wore the stretchy pants Tony had given him. "Not much use 'til the other guy's needed."

"I guess we're walking?" Peter said.

"Watch your step," Natasha said, stepping besides Steve.

"Planning on it," Steve murmured, looking down at the GPS his StarkPhone was displaying. "JARVIS, still here?"

"_As always, Captain,_" JARVIS said from the phone. "_Shall we continue?_"

"Yeah." Steve glanced back to be sure they were all here before he turned and began walking.

They walked in silence across the mountainous terrain, eyes peeled for any sign of HYDRA or the base that Charles had mentioned.

"We're getting close," Steve murmured, tapping the screen to zoom in.

"Should I take point?" Natasha asked.

In answer Steve handed her his phone, letting her step ahead and lead them on.

They continued slowly for another five minutes, stopping every now and then to reorient themselves and make sure they weren't missing anything.

"Shouldn't we be seeing the base by now?" Peter asked softly.

"I doubt they have it just above the ground," Clint responded. "That's not HYDRA's style."

"They're more the type to have a window peeking out of a mountain," Steve said, remembering Red Skull's base.

"I keep forgetting you're a font of historical information," Peter said. "Maybe you wouldn't mind helping me with some papers? If I ever get back to school, that is…"

"You're going back," Bruce said firmly. "If anything, Tony will tutor you at home."

"That'd be kinda cool…"

"_I would deem it inadvisable,_" JARVIS said. "_Mr. Stark does not have the best temperament for teaching._"

"I can see that," Clint said, snickering. "He'd threaten to donate you to a community college."

"Shh," Natasha hushed them, stopping in front of Steve. "We're here."

This came as a surprise to Steve because there was absolutely nothing around them to signal that they were at all near a base. There were mountains and rocky outcrops surrounding them, but they all looked perfectly natural to his untrained eye. Maybe he should take up geology.

"Next time I'm picking up geology," Bruce muttered from behind him. "Would be at least _useful_."

"I don't like it," Clint said quietly, one hand twitching at his side as if he wanted to notch an arrow to his bow. "We're too exposed out here."

Steve shifted his shield off his back, slipping his arm through the straps. Clint was right. Their position was far too vulnerable.

Natasha handed him his phone, her hand now going to her gun. "Stay close," she ordered softly. "I've been to these sorts of bases before. They're usually hiding in plain sight."

"I'm definitely studying geology," Peter whispered as he crouched slightly.

What happened next Steve wasn't entirely sure of. He heard something similar to a gunshot, only it was much louder – probably magnified due to the rocks surrounding them. Seconds later Peter jumped into the air, spinning slightly before he landed on all fours in front of Natasha, looking so much like a spider Steve blinked.

"I was almost shot!" Peter said, pushing himself up on his hands.

There was another gunshot that echoed through the mountains, making it impossible for Steve to pinpoint where it came from.

But this time pain burst through his shoulder and he stumbled, hissing in pain. He kept his balance and whirled, putting up his shield defensively. The bullet had hit him but failed to pierce his uniform.

Clint had an arrow notched and was aiming it behind him. "I've got him," he said quietly, letting the arrow fly a split-second later.

And not a second too soon because there was a third gunshot, and this time the bullet struck Clint in the shoulder – his _uncovered_ shoulder because he kept insisting that covering it with the kind of material Natasha wore would be too restricting. Blood sprayed through the air, and Clint grunted with pain, gasping quietly as he hunched over, fingers clutching his shoulder.

"Clint!" Natasha had her gun up.

"I got him," Clint bit out through gritted teeth. "I _got_ the bastard."

There was an explosion moments later, and the spot Clint's arrow had landed billowed with smoke.

"Your shoulder?" Bruce asked, one hand resting on Clint's arm below the entry point.

"Fine." Clint hissed in pain as Bruce pried his fingers off to inspect the wound.

"It tore through the muscle," Bruce said quietly. "You're not going to be able to shoot anything for a while."

"Been through worse." Clint stooped to pick up his bow.

"And then were laid up for months because you overstrained yourself," Natasha snapped.

"Last resort, Hawkeye," Steve commanded.

"I don't think they're done," Peter warned, standing now. "My spider sense is tingling like nuts."

"Winter Soldier isn't the only sniper they have," Natasha said grimly. "Just the best."

"Where's the base?" Steve demanded. He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, probably JARVIS calling to get his attention. He tapped his cowl to get the earpiece on.

"JARVIS," he said quietly.

"_I am here, Captain._" JARVIS sounded relieved to hear his voice.

"Can you tell me where the base is?"

"_My sensors are rather limited in that regard, Captain. You are standing directly where Professor Xavier said Mr. Stark last was._"

But there was nothing _here_.

"Captain!" Peter's alarmed scream was the last thing Steve heard before there was another deafening gunshot and the back of his neck was hit.

This time he slammed into the ground, extremities tingling with the force of the impact.

"_That_ was the Winter Soldier," he heard Natasha hissing. "The other was a decoy."

"Shit," Clint groaned. "Damn it."

There was another groaning sound from Bruce, and Steve heard him hit the ground seconds later.

"Oh shit, they took him out!" That was Peter.

"Tranqs," Clint said, assured.

Steve pushed himself to his feet, shaky with the shot to his spinal cord.

"I'd recommend covering your exposed areas," Natasha said.

"I'm screwed." Clint's fingers tightened on his bloody shoulder.

"Let 'em take us," Steve said, catching their attention. "We have to get in."

"Not one of your best plans, Captain," Natasha said, her gun lowering slightly.

"It's the only one I've got." Steve gave her a grim smile. Then, unflinchingly, he lowered his cowl.

"I'm not taking my mask off," Peter said. "I'll play dead."

That was the last thing Steve heard before he felt something prick him in the neck. Almost instantly he felt woozy; his legs buckled beneath him and he hit the ground again, slumping forward.

He was dimly aware of someone else also hitting the ground before he succumbed to the sedatives.

Definitely not one of his best plans.

* * *

When Steve drifted into awareness an unknown amount of time later, he was aware of a throbbing in his temples and a dryness in his mouth. To be blunt, his tongue felt like cotton and there were hammers pounding away in his temples.

Groaning softly, Steve brought both hands up, pressing his palms into his eyes to alleviate the pounding. It was a few minutes before it subsided enough for him to uncover his eyes and sit up.

He wasn't the only one in the barren room that looked like it was a cave. The rest of the team was also inside, though they were all awake with the exception of Bruce.

Natasha saw him looking over. "He's out like a light," she said quietly. "Whatever they gave him is still working."

"Or they pumped more into him," Clint said, his shoulder bandaged and the cloth stained red. "Can't say much for their hospitality."

"They did bind up your shoulder," Peter said.

"You're still masked," Steve said, vaguely aware he sounded surprised.

"I know. Color me surprised." Peter shrugged lightly. "To be fair, they didn't manage to knock me out." He picked at the cloth of his uniform. "This thing is really fantastic."

"Don't remind me," Clint said. "This is the last time I refuse his offer to make me a catsuit."

"You wore one for that mission earlier," Natasha told him. "It was fine then."

"Stealth missions require different uniforms. This wasn't stealth."

Steve looked down at his own uniform, not surprised to see that he was missing his utility belt. He had no idea where his shield was, but it was unlikely that they had destroyed it. Vibranium was too rare a material, never mind that Tony could apparently manufacture it in his basement with nothing more than a particle accelerator or whatever that thing was.

His breath hitched slightly at the thought of Tony. If he was right, this was where Tony had been when Charles had checked up on him. They were that much closer to getting him out. Though Bruce being sedated put a damper on any plans he could cook up. Carting an unconscious man around HYDRA's base wasn't something he wanted to do. Especially since Clint's arm was completely out of commission.

"Any plans, Captain?" Natasha asked, her wry voice implying that she was well aware of Steve's train of thought.

"If I might make a suggestion," Peter said, "I vote we wait for someone to get us out. Then we bust past them."

"We should wait," Clint disagreed. "See if we can get any information on the base."

"Not very likely," Natasha said. "They know full well what we're capable of."

"Then why are we all in the same room?" Steve asked. "They're either a bunch of idiots or they don't think we can manage it."

"I vote for them being idiots," Peter said. "Please."

"It's not up for voting," Natasha said dryly.

Steve tilted his head to the side, frowning as he heard footsteps outside their room. "I think someone's coming."

"We'll make sure to look completely harmless," Clint said, huddling by a wall and suddenly looking so weak it took even Steve aback.

"Hmph." Natasha crouched next to Clint.

"I'm just a kid." Peter sounded plaintive, though Steve couldn't be sure if this was an act because of the mask.

Bruce was out cold, so that just left Steve to sit on the bed and feel silly. Tony had told him once that he either looked like a giant teddy bear or the most threatening man on the planet. But since this had been post-sex, Steve didn't know how accurate this was.

The door opened then, revealing maybe a dozen HYDRA goons out there. Probably not stupid after all then, but since Natasha alone could take out two dozen men without breaking a sweat, they were still seriously undermanned.

"Move and we'll tranq you," the one in the front threatened, showcasing his gun.

"You're not going to kill us?" Steve asked.

There was no answer to this, but the goons marched into the room, three of them surrounding Steve. Four went to Clint and Natasha. One stood by Peter. Then another three planted themselves by Bruce's bedside. The twelfth and the leader remained standing by the door.

Steve was unable to keep from stiffening as another man appeared in the doorway. This one wore a dark brown cloak and each of his fingers was adorned with a ring. His dark eyes glinted cruelly, and his sleek black hair was tied back in a tight ponytail.

"Avengers." His voice was soft, dangerously so. This was a man used to getting what he wanted when he asked for it. "This was an expected surprise."

"Not a surprise if you expect it," Steve said evenly, ignoring the looks Natasha and Clint shot him. It was well-known among HYDRA operatives that he was a smart-mouth. If he kept quiet, they'd be more suspicious than if he was mouthing off.

"Well," the man said, "we had your teammate. We were wondering when you would show."

"Where is he?" Steve asked, barely able to restrain his anger.

"Where is he?" The man hummed noncommittally, tapping his fingers together. "Life's greatest mystery is perhaps where one goes after death, don't you think?"

Steve's heart twisted painfully in his chest, and he hoped he was able to keep the pain off his face as he said, "What?"

"He's dead, Captain," the man said bluntly. "It was a rather magnificent display if I do say so myself."

Tony…dead?

"You're lying," Natasha said, voice soft.

"Am I, my dear?" The man gave her a dismissive look. "Tony Stark is dead, and I have the Avengers in my grasp. I think now the question is what exactly I should do with my most fortunate luck."

Tony couldn't be _dead_. It just…it just didn't seem _conceivable_. That Tony would die now, after having survived two gunshots to the chest not even a month ago?

"You really think you can hold us here?" Steve asked eventually, his voice quiet. Grief was roiling in his stomach, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He had a team to take care of, and he needed to get them out. Once they were all safe…then…he could fall apart.

"I don't think, I know, Captain." The man smiled, the expression seeming friendly though it didn't reach his eyes. "Now, Tony Stark would never have answered our questions, but I believe his teammates would not be so disinclined now that they have seen what we are capable of."

"We already knew you were murderers," Steve said.

"Small-time murderers perhaps. But killing Iron Man? The first Avenger?" The man's smile turned chilly. "We have – as you Americans would say – entered the big leagues."

"So what? You want to play ball?"

"We have questions," the man said. "About the bridge your deceased Tony Stark was building."

The Bifrost? All this over a _bridge_?

Inhaling deeply, Steve managed to put on his best "Oh, golly gee" expression. "I'm just a guy from the forties. Science isn't really my bag if you get my meaning." He smiled now, flashing his teeth. "You'd do better to ask Bruce over there." He gestured to the still unconscious doctor.

"We do know who he is, Captain," the man said, not sounding at all impressed at Steve's posturing. "I don't think it would be in either of our best interests to let the beast out."

Steve didn't say that Hulk was well able to tell friend from foe now and that the only people who would be in danger were HYDRA goons. Especially if he heard that Tony was dead. "I see." He kept his tone calm.

"I am certain you do, Captain." The man smiled genially. "Perhaps you require some time to consider your options? I can come back later if you so choose. We have nothing but time on our hands."

"Perhaps that would be best," Steve conceded, flashing the smile he'd always given on his tours in the war. It had never failed him before. "Until then?"

"Absolutely, Captain." The man inclined his head, drawing back through the door. The HYDRA goons followed him out, locking the door shut with a loud bang.

Now Steve was able to let his chin drop to his chest, breath coming in quick gasps. He fought to get control of himself, push the grief back until he could better focus on it. He couldn't break down now.

After a few seconds, he managed it, straightening with dry eyes.

Natasha studied him carefully. "Are you all right?" Her question was soft.

"Yes." It was a lie, and a bad one at that, but thankfully none of them pointed it out.

"This complicates things," Clint said, his head pressed back against the wall behind him.

"I can probably make something up," Steve said quietly, not addressing the issue Clint was calling "complicated." "Tony's talked enough science to me."

"The problem's that it'll sound false," Natasha said. "You're not fluent enough in that language to be able to pull it off. Neither am I."

"I am," Peter said.

"I won't put you in that kind of danger," Steve said, fixing him with a hard stare. "Not now." Not with Tony dead.

"You might not have a choice." Peter's tone was steady.

"I'm definitely going to try." Steve thinned his lips. "But we've still got some time."

"Not much," Natasha noted.

Steve didn't answer, his focus on the door the man had walked through.

Maybe by the time he came back, Bruce would be up.

* * *

It was bitterly cold here. Encased in the suit, Tony couldn't physically feel it, but the temperature gauge on the HUD showed that it was far below freezing and dropping rapidly.

In an effort to scout out the area, Tony had flown in small circles around the spot he had landed in. He was reluctant to get too far from it in case something else dropped in courtesy of the Mandarin. It was a long shot, but hey, anything could happen.

Still, after an hour Tony had to concede that he was the only one who had ended up here. At least his body had stopped tingling from whatever the Mandarin had done; that had just sucked.

Given that the likelihood of anything else coming here seemed infinitesimally low now that an hour had passed, Tony was getting restless. He wouldn't get home if he didn't start moving.

Huffing lightly, Tony muttered to himself (not to JARVIS because he was _gone_), "Better get going or I'll just freeze in the air."

It was highly unlikely that the suit would freeze, but Tony hadn't designed it with such cold weather in mind. It could hold up in Arctic weather, but this was _beyond_ that. If he didn't start moving, the chance that the suit's joints would stiffen would increase.

Picking a random location (north, because north was always better), Tony fired his repulsors and blasted off.

The direction he'd picked was also with the wind, meaning he didn't have to pour as much power into the repulsors. It also meant snow wasn't hitting him in the faceplate. It hadn't stopped snowing since he'd crash landed, and another foot had settled on the ground while he'd drifted in not-so-lazy circles.

Tony couldn't help the small hope that maybe Extremis would pick something up now that he was moving. And as it continued to lie silent except for buzzing softly in the back of his mind, that hope slowly dwindled further and further until it vanished altogether.

"I better not spend another damn three months here," Tony muttered. "I'm not building another suit just to jump planets."

There was no response, but then he wasn't talking out loud for that anyway. He was too used to JARVIS responding, and without him Tony floundered. Talking was the only way Tony could reassure himself that he wasn't alone. That he was physically _present_.

"Not that I'm _not_ here, because then I'd be dead. Or maybe I'm unconscious in that snow bank or in the Mandarin's lair, but that'd still mean I'm _here_."

It was at this point that JARVIS would say something vaguely snide or snarky.

"I'm pathetic."

Tony kept his head up to watch where he was going with the night vision on the HUD. There was otherwise no light due to the terrible flying conditions, and he wasn't in any mood to try and fly higher in case he missed something. Then again, maybe there was better reception higher up.

"If this doesn't work, that's my next move." And if he didn't get home soon, he'd be forever talking aloud to himself as if he was crazy. "Aren't we all?"

After another two minutes of flying, Tony ran into obstacles that he liked to call mountains. He angled himself up to fly straight over the peaks. Once he was over, he flew across some of the craggy peaks and – just for fun – kicked one with his boot to watch the rocks fall down the mountainside.

"Next stop: Himalayas."

He'd delete the suit's recordings later; there was no need to have a memento of the time he'd spent talking to himself like a loon. "Just keep the scientific blabbering. Never know when there's a gem in there and not just equations."

Feeling brave, Tony poured on the speed on his repulsors, accelerating so he was powering through the air even faster. He wanted to get _home_.

That thought was promptly derailed when he collided head on with something that his night vision had not seen (it wasn't warm and was just _standing_ there) and spun through the air to land on the icy ground with a pained cry.

"Ow, ow, ow, _ow_." Tony flailed dramatically, stopping his spinning with a mental hand. Having stopped, he found himself face down on the ice. Pushing himself up to his knees, he shook his head before looking up to see where he'd landed.

It looked like the middle of a courtyard. There were also what looked like giant blue people with red sclera and black pupils.

"Oh, hi." Tony managed a wave as he got to his feet. He was definitely not in Kansas anymore, Toto. "Mind telling me where I am?"

One of the giants stepped in front of him, glowering down at his (rather insignificant) form. Considering they were definitely taller than Thor (by three feet at least, his mind added), he was feeling really puny now.

"I come in peace?" Tony tried, hoping he looked peaceful. He hadn't made the suit with this in mind, but he could always hope his body language was readable.

The giant spoke, but it was in no language Tony recognized.

"Sorry?" Tony gave a wavy gesture with a hand, only to drop it when the giant growled. "I don't understand. You speak English?"

There were more indistinguishable words, and Tony really wished Extremis came with a translator.

"You guys don't have Allspeak?" Tony kept his voice light. "Might be easier if you did."

The giant roared then, startling Tony into taking several steps back. He collided with another giant's legs, and he flailed as the giant picked him up by a leg.

"Careful with the suit!" he yelped, flailing slightly.

The giant paid him no need, continuing to carry him somewhere Tony couldn't exactly see since he was _swinging_. All the HUD was registering that the giants were very, very cold, and Tony was lucky the suit was on because the metal was actually icing over, and he hadn't had that problem since the Mark II.

Then he was thrown into an icy cavern, hitting the other side with a heavy thud and sliding down. Grunting slightly as he made sure all systems were still relatively green and he could move, Tony sat up, letting his faceplate slide back. He inhaled the bitterly cold air, noting that it wasn't quite as cold in the cavern as it was outside.

Maybe he could actually get some sleep in here. It was somewhat more protected than being out in the open, and he could do with protection considering he was no longer on Earth. The giant blue monsters had definitely driven that point home. No wonder he couldn't access anything with Extremis.

Glancing down at his leg, Tony hit the ice with a gauntlet, shattering it. Shaking it so the rest of the ice fell off, he looked back up at the large ice door that he'd been thrown through. He could probably melt it with his repulsors, and even then he wasn't powerless without the suit.

He would be fine.

Exhaling slowly, Tony settled back against the icy wall, letting the faceplate slide back down so his beard wouldn't ice up (it wasn't _that_ warm in here).

Sleeping in the Iron Man suit wasn't what he preferred, but it was his only choice.

Making sure that Extremis would sound an alarm in case something showed up that shouldn't, Tony closed his eyes and tried to get some shut-eye. Who knew how much longer he'd be here for?

* * *

He startled awake three hours later as Extremis warned him that something was outside the door.

Tony shifted into a fighting position, repulsors up as the door opened.

A giant poked its head in, bared its teeth at Tony, and kicked something into the room. It then withdrew, closing the door.

Tony stared, unsure of what had just happened.

It looked like a tray of food. Though he couldn't be sure since it didn't seem to be anything he could actually eat. It looked kind of blue in some places (maybe it was frozen?) while other places were so pink he swore there was still blood seeping out of it.

"I like the thought behind it!" he called, putting his hands down now that the threat was gone. "Too bad I can't eat it."

He wasn't about to try it just on the off chance it was edible. He wasn't _that_ demented.

"Considering I'm in a metal suit," Tony mused, sitting back against the wall, "I'm surprised they even think I need to eat. Do they even have metal here?"

The tray would indicate they did. But then on closer inspection with his HUD Tony realized it was actually ice. Then again, the giants had been wearing jewelry and he'd also seen things like staffs and spears on the way into this cell, and they'd clearly not been ice. They did have metal, but it was probably only used for important things like looking pretty and fighting.

Maybe he should hide the food. He wouldn't want the giants to think he was putting up his nose at their hospitality.

"Is it hospitality?" he wondered. "Or am I a prisoner?"

The question was idiotic, seeing as how he was in a room with absolutely no furniture. Who put up their guests in a room with no furniture? Prisoner it was.

"I need work," he lamented at the food. "Especially if I'm asking stupid questions."

He walked to the tray, stooping down to pick it up with a hand and supporting the rest with his mind since it was ridiculously big. Now that he was up close, Tony was even more repulsed at the food.

Screwing up his nose, Tony was really glad for his helmet. The food probably smelled awful.

He brought the tray over to a wall, setting it down and then beginning to burn a hole in the wall with a repulsor. It took a minute before he had a decent-sized hole he could shove the food in. Then he pulled over a large rock and shoved it in front to hide his handiwork before returning to his designated sleeping spot and sitting back down.

He was going to get some more sleep if he could.

* * *

The next time he awoke it was again due to Extremis. This time the giant stepped inside and stretched out to grab his leg, presumably to haul him out.

"I can walk!" Tony scrambled out of its reach, getting to his feet and putting up his hands, placating. It wasn't like the giant knew this was actually a threatening gesture in this suit. He made as if to walk forward. "See? I can walk."

The giant glowered down at him suspiciously.

"Walking." Tony slid slowly toward its side, trying not to slip and make a fool of himself, setting his head down in his best impression of a demure guest (prisoner).

The giant grunted and seemed to roll its eyes before taking hold of Tony's shoulder and steering him through the building he was in. There wasn't much light, but there was definitely more than there had been before. Everything was cast in a bluish sort of light, making Tony feel sort of blue.

"Nice interior design," he said under his breath. "Who was your designer?"

The giant didn't respond, but then Tony hadn't expected it to.

If Tony was right, then he was probably in one of the realms Thor liked to talk about. Unfortunately, his Norse mythology was shoddy enough that he didn't know _which_ realm. Only that it was populated by giant blue people with red eyes, which Thor had mentioned once or twice. Tony kind of wished he'd paid a bit more attention to the names.

The giant brought him to another door, and Tony was shoved through it and into what seemed to be an arena.

"Don't tell me you guys are into gladiator fights," Tony groaned, getting up onto his knees.

There was roaring from around him, and Tony did his best to seem as innocuous as possible. Another giant appeared from the opposite side of the arena. With huge scars marring its face and chest, this one seemed worse off than the ones Tony had seen before. It was also missing teeth as it snarled something at Tony.

"I have no idea what you just said," Tony said, "but I'll assume it was something sporting."

A mace was thrown into the arena, and his opponent jumped on it.

Tony pushed himself to stand, spreading his feet so he'd be less likely to slip. "Ooh, sweet. Bludgeoning it is."

There must have been sort of signal that the fight would start, though Tony didn't know what. Either way, the giant let out a deafening roar and attacked.

It didn't take Tony more than a second to decide what he needed to do. Conserving energy was an absolute must because he had no idea how long he'd be here for. He also didn't know what would happen if he ran _out_ of energy, especially considering it was in his body.

Telekinesis it was.

Tony wrenched the mace out of the giant's hands, flipping it around with a wave of his hand and then swinging it directly into the giant's face. It made impact with a sickening crack, and Tony winced at the sound. Still, he didn't drop the mace, instead pulling it over to where he was standing and keeping it afloat next to him.

"Want some more?" he asked.

The giant's nose was quite evidently broken, but that didn't seem to stop it from rushing to attack Tony with nothing more than its fists.

"I guess that's a yes." Tony swung his arm again, making sure to sweep the giant's legs out from underneath it with the mace. Then he lifted the mace even higher before letting it drop directly onto the giant's head. He didn't stop there, pushing the giant deeper into the ice, which let out an ominous cracking sound.

There was howling and thrashing from the helpless giant, but Tony didn't stop. He needed some way of getting out here, and if defeating his opponent would help him with that, then he'd do it.

Leaving one hand facing the ground, Tony moved his right and made a scooping motion with it, lifting up some of the ice that had been uprooted. Then he brought that down on the giant's head, grinding it even further into the ground.

After a minute of this, the giant fell still. Tony kept the pressure up for about five more seconds just be certain before he let go. He felt vaguely ill with the knowledge of what he had just done.

He turned to the side, facing an entire wall of spectators. "Is that it?" he asked.

There was a loud roaring from behind him that his HUD told him was shaking the air and the ground. Unthinkingly, Tony whirled, only to find his feet sliding out from under him. He hit the ice hard, a shocked gasp escaping him before he could stop it.

Another sound rang through the air, and it didn't take Tony much time to register it as laughter.

"Glad I'm amusing you all," he grumbled, propping himself up on his elbows as he caught sight of the source of the tremors. "Jesus Christ."

It was a monster. A very furry monster that didn't seem to have any eyes but did have two nostrils directly above an absolutely enormous mouth with very sharp teeth. It boasted incredibly powerful legs and terrifying claws.

"Screw Jabba the Hut," Tony muttered, pushing himself up to his feet. "I bet this is where Lucas got his inspiration from."

The monster dug its claws into the ice, the ground splintering beneath its feet as it ground backwards much like a very aggressive dog. It seemed to be getting ready to eat Tony.

"Screw this." Tony executed a perfect about face and spread his arms, focusing intensely on the body of the monster.

It made a questioning sound that was more a growl as its motions slowly ground to a halt under Tony's mental force.

Bending over slowly, Tony screwed his eyes shut as he focused on lifting the thing. It was ridiculously heavy, but he believed in the concept of mind over matter.

Grunting with effort, Tony swung his arms up and over his head as if he was throwing down a heavy bag. He let go of the beast's body a second later, looking up to see it fly over his head and smash into the ground with a pained screech. Its weight hitting the ground nearly made Tony slip again.

"That's that." Tony straightened up, giving a jaunty salute to the shocked giants still watching. "And that's my cue to exit."

He looked up at the ceiling and punched a hole through it with a combination of repulsor fire and telekinesis. With shattered and melting ice falling around him, Tony blasted off into the open sky.

He unhesitatingly set course to the south, leaving behind his former prison as fast as he possibly could. He had little doubt that the giants would soon be after him and he had to do his best to put as much distance between himself and them as possible.

Tony was about fifty miles and several mountains away before he touched down on the rocky ground. There wasn't as much snow here, but whether that was because it had all melted – which seemed unlikely given the low temperatures – or for some other reason he couldn't tell.

Either way, it was no longer as dark as it had been before. There was some sort of light illuminating his surroundings, but it wasn't anything he was familiar with. It still seemed like nighttime, but there was enough light that he could see without using his night vision. Everything just had a very bluish tint to it.

"When I get back, I'm outlawing blue," Tony muttered, picking a random direction and beginning to walk.

Flying everywhere wasn't an option. He'd run out of power in absolutely no time.

"What I need is a cave. A nice warm cave." Tony puffed lightly as he hit a steep slope and began walking uphill. "Or maybe I should just make an igloo. I hear they're very warm."

He continued walking uphill for several minutes until the slope leveled out. The temperature had now settled to a nice and toasty 29 degrees, which was a lot warmer than last night (if it had been night when he'd arrived).

Inside the armor was getting to be rather warm with him exerting so much energy. The suit hadn't been designed with extended walking in mind, and although it wasn't necessarily uncomfortable, it was incredibly inconvenient.

Since he could now breathe the air outside without freezing his tongue off and it was really getting to be rather toasty inside the suit, Tony lifted the faceplate, recoiling as the cold air hit his flushed cheeks. He blinked into the frigid wind, inhaling deeply.

The wind swept into his helmet and through the rest of his armor, cooling him down enough so that he felt more comfortable. It only took a couple of minutes before he began getting chilly and lowered the faceplate again.

He wished he could feel his face with his hands, but he didn't dare take the armor off. His undersuit had some heat-retaining abilities, but without shoes he'd be freezing in no time.

"Note to self: make shoes."

Tony stumbled upon a sheer drop when the ground he was on suddenly fell away to nothing. Randomly deciding to turn left, he continued walking, eyes fixed on the abyss to his right as he maintained a careful distance from the edge.

After about five minutes of walking along the same crevasse, Tony gave in to his curiosity and stopped, turning to examine it. Upon closer inspection, it almost looked like some sort of laser beam had come down and gouged it out. It was too perfectly made to be natural.

But that was if Tony was prone to fits of fancy. Which he really wasn't.

Huffing lightly in exasperation at his thoughts, Tony shook his head and continued walking. If necessary, he could fly across it to dodge his pursuers.

After a few more seconds, he deemed this to be a good idea and took off to make his way to the other side. He landed a minute later, turning his back to the crevasse and continuing further onto flat land. He had no desire to spend his time here walking next to a really deep crevasse and risking toppling over when he got too tired.

"I so need a cave."

He walked for about an hour more before the little light there was began to fade. Not wanting to get caught in the pitch dark with only his night vision to help, Tony quickened his search for a cave.

It was almost completely dark when he hit the jackpot. Giving the area a quick check with his sensors, Tony decided the cave was safe enough and went inside. There were signs that something had made the cave its home at one point, but there were no current signs of the animal, and Tony was really getting tired of walking.

He pressed on deeper into the cave, aiming to get away from the opening and the cold wind that would doubtlessly make its way in at some point. After rounding a turn, Tony found that the cave was rather deeply carved into the mountain and sincerely hoped that the animal that'd carved it out wouldn't be coming home at any point.

"I can always fry it."

Decision made, Tony flumped down, making himself as comfortable as he could considering he was still stuck in his armor. As the cave was far warmer than outside, Tony lifted his faceplate, inhaling the stale air deeply. It smelled a bit foul – probably because of the animal – but it was better than breathing the filtered air his armor gave him. With a reluctant sigh, he closed the faceplate before his face could freeze off.

"If only there was wood." There hadn't been any trees or anything else he could use to start a fire.

Making himself comfortable against a groove in the wall, Tony rested his head back on the wall, closing his eyes. Extremis pinged softly in the back of his mind, the signal that it was ready to sound an alarm if necessary.

Still, Tony felt like he'd barely closed his eyes before he was startling awake with the loud alarm Extremis screeched through his mind. And a bit too late, too, because there was a gigantic furry monster with a mouth that separated into four parts (_Just like a flower_, Tony thought hysterically) that wasn't at all pleased to find an intruder in _its_ home.

It looked an awful lot like a monster from that _Star Trek_ movie that had come out a few years ago, but Tony couldn't think much more on that because it was about to eat him.

Blurry with sleep, Tony fired both repulsors directly into the beast's mouth, sending it careening backwards. It screeched with pain, its mouth smoking and blood dripping down onto the cave ground. The blood steamed, hissing as it touched the freezing ground.

Tony pressed himself up against the wall he was lying against, unable to get by the monster. It was blocking the exit and tromping all over the floor in agony. Unless he wanted to get squashed (and he really _didn't_), slipping by wasn't an option at the moment.

And several seconds later it still wasn't because the monster again lunged for him regardless of its bleeding mouth. Tony reflexively fired his repulsors again, not bothering to limit the power he put into the shots.

This time the reaction was much more violent. The monster reared back, colliding with the top of the cave and causing the entire structure to shake. To Tony's horror, cracks started to form in the rocks, spreading out from the point of impact. They spread even more as the monster's tail whacked against the walls, further destabilizing the mountain the cave was in.

It must not have been that stable to begin with if it was destabilizing this quickly.

Tony struggled to his feet, not exactly eager to be trapped beneath a hundred tons of rock. He wavered on his feet, desperate to dive past the monster but unable to find an opportunity with the way it was staggering back and forth and snapping its tail into the walls.

Its head hit the top of the cave once again, and this time Tony heard a terrifyingly loud cracking sound.

It was the last thing he heard and saw before a mountain fell on top of him, burying both him and the monster alive.

* * *

**Don't kill me. Not yet. Next chapter should be up as well! *points to button***


	2. Part II

**Part II**

* * *

It was about an hour after the man left that they were all carted into what seemed to be interrogation cells. Steve thought they seemed rather like the old-fashioned jail cells one saw on TV in soap operas. They were each deposited in a separate cell, though they could see each other through the bars.

Bruce had been on the verge of waking up as they had been retrieved, although he'd been thoroughly drugged with something that kept him subdued and slurring when he spoke.

And yet despite this, their captor went first into Bruce's cell. Steve thought this rather ridiculous considering Bruce couldn't even speak clearly; did he think he'd get a straight answer from him?

"Doctor," the man said charmingly, "I have heard such marvelous things about you and your work. What do you know of the bridge Tony Stark was working on before his death?"

Bruce blinked rather owlishly, looking up at the man through hazy eyes. "It's a bridge, isn't it," he slurred, the words running together. "Goes places."

"Yes. _Where_ does it go?"

Bruce seemed genuinely confused at this question. "Places. 'S a bridge."

The man abandoned this question. "How does it work?"

Bruce tilted his head to the side. "Like a bridge? You walk…"

Steve repressed a hysterical laugh at Bruce's slurred answers. Drugged or not, Bruce knew exactly what he was doing.

"You can't _walk_ from Earth to the realm of the gods." The man sounded skeptical.

"Thor's an alien," Bruce asserted firmly. "Use a…_spaceship_." He seemed particularly proud of this announcement.

"You cannot reach Asgard with a spaceship!"

"No?" Bruce furrowed his brow in confusion. Then it cleared and he nodded sagely. "Use the bridge."

"That is my _question_." The man was aggravated now. "How do you use the bridge? How did he build it?"

Bruce peered up at him. Then: "I don't like weed." He sounded petulant.

The man growled now, actually angered to a point Steve hadn't seen him before. "If you don't give me a straight answer," the man said slowly and clearly, "I will not hesitate to shoot you, Doctor."

"He doesn't like that," Bruce protested. "The other guy…gets _mad_." He giggled as if he had told a particularly good joke.

"I'm sure he and I could come to an agreement," the man said sweetly. "Would you like to test it?"

Bruce's head rolled from side to side, the entire movement utterly lazy. "You'll regret it," he sang in Mother Gothel's voice from _Tangled_.

The man's face twisted in complete and utter rage, and he gestured furiously at a HYDRA goon standing outside.

Steve watched in horror as a gun cocked threateningly; he opened his mouth to stop them when Peter burst out, "I know!"

The man lifted his hand to stop the goon from firing, his dark eyes turning to Peter, who was to the right of Bruce's cell and directly opposite of Steve. "Do you?"

"Oh yeah." Peter nodded vigorously. "I'm a scientist."

"You are a child."

"You know how young Tony Stark was when he was in college? _Thirteen_. He graduated at seventeen!"

The man narrowed his eyes, considering Peter thoughtfully. "This is true."

After another second, the man gestured sharply and left Bruce's cell, letting the HYDRA goon lock it behind him as he went over to Peter's cell.

This time the man didn't go in alone. A HYDRA goon followed him in, coming up behind Peter and shoving him to his knees.

"Unmask him," the man ordered softly. "I would see who I speak with."

Peter cringed. "Can we not? Because I have some really bad scars—" He broke off as the mask was wrenched off by the goon, flinching slightly as the man's eyes rove hungrily over his face.

"You are indeed young," the man noted. "What is your name?"

Peter swallowed visibly. "Spider-Man."

"Your secret name, young one." The man sounded forbidding. "I will tell you mine: I am the Mandarin."

The fruit? Steve frowned, glancing over to see Clint mouthing "_Mandarin? Fruit?_" in incredulous disbelief.

"Doesn't seem like an actual name either," Peter noted.

"It is who I am."

"So's Spider-Man." Peter wet his lips. "I think you can appreciate having some secrets."

"True," the Mandarin conceded. "Spider-Man then." He smiled, his eyes cold. "What can you tell me of this bridge that Tony Stark was building?"

Peter actually looked more confident now. "It's the Bifrost; that's what they call it. And Tony wasn't exactly building it; he was repairing it. See, it kind of got broken because the gods were fighting. They couldn't fix it themselves, so Tony offered to do it."

The Mandarin looked intrigued. "Did he succeed?"

"Oh yeah!" Peter nodded enthusiastically. "To be honest, no one really thought he could do it. But he did."

"The misunderstood scientist," the Mandarin murmured. "What were the mechanics?"

"The mechanics?" Peter repeated slowly. "Of rebuilding the bridge, you mean?"

"Yes." The word was sharp, impatient.

"I…" Steve could practically see his brain chugging away, trying to come up with a plausible explanation that would still be complete bullshit. "I don't know."

The Mandarin didn't accept this pitiful explanation. But Steve didn't expect what happened next. The goon struck Peter with a fist, knocking him to the ground.

Peter didn't whimper or make another sound. He pushed himself back up to his knees, shivering faintly. This time the Mandarin struck him across the face, his rings drawing blood as they pierced Peter's skin.

Steve could hear Peter sharply inhale in shock. He blinked, eyes tightening in pain as blood trickled out from the scratches the Mandarin's rings had made.

"I will not accept lies," the Mandarin said lowly, his tone dangerous. "You know what happened. Speak the truth!"

Peter swallowed, eyes flickering back and forth between the cells. He met Steve's eyes briefly before he returned his gaze to the Mandarin.

The Mandarin raised his hand threateningly, only to be cut off as Peter blurted out, "Quantum mechanics! All about reversing the polarity, see?"

The Mandarin's hand dropped. "Explain."

"Asgard didn't have the necessary equipment to reverse the polarity and they needed to do that to actually get the bridge to connect to the other side. They also lacked the energy needed to reverse the polarity, and Tony had to get that energy. The arc reactor, yeah? It's renewable energy, got enough to power the machines Asgard has.

"And then the physics were kinda really a lot different between Asgard and here. Gods, you know? Our physics and theirs don't really match, so Tony needed to go quantum. It's amazing how you can bend the laws of physics when you go quantum. So that's what he did when he reversed the polarity and got the energy needed to connect from here to Asgard and tell them he could get the bridge fixed."

Peter took a breath, looking entirely earnest as he continued, "So he got the information and the equations and the materials, but he didn't get the chance to actually _build_ it. Because he ended up coming here to take care of weapons, and then you wasted him, and we can't exactly contact Asgard from the inside of a cell." He stopped now, inhaling deeply through his mouth and nodding once.

Even Steve, who wasn't anywhere near as intelligent as Tony, could tell that Peter's explanation had been 99% bullshit. But it would seem that the Mandarin was actually considering Peter's words, since his brow was furrowed but not in that thunderous way that meant he was likely to strike or kill Peter.

"Do you have these equations?" the Mandarin asked finally.

Peter blinked. "Yes?"

"You will give them to us."

"Ah, I don't—"

"You will give them to us, or your team will be killed."

"Okay!" Peter ducked his head. "I need some paper. And a pen. Maybe a pencil? Something I can erase if I make a mistake. I'm doing this from memory."

"You will have it." The Mandarin gestured to a HYDRA goon standing outside, and that one spoke softly in his helmet but didn't otherwise move.

"Can I also have a calculator?" Peter asked. "Just to double check the equations. I was just the assistant; Tony did all the work."

Within ten minutes, Peter was provided with paper, pencils, and a rather old looking calculator that he eyed dubiously but accepted wordlessly. Then, sitting down on the floor and propping the paper up on the clipboard he'd also been brought, he began scribbling quickly across the blank sheet. Every now and then he stopped and input something very carefully into the calculator, frowning and nodding and shaking his head as if he carrying on a mental conversation.

Steve watched him breathlessly, hoping that whatever Peter was putting down on that sheet looked credible enough to pass inspection.

Peter soon set aside his first sheet and moved onto the next, inputting more numbers into the calculator before beginning to write again, this time more slowly.

"This better be right," he muttered quietly almost as if to himself. "He didn't explain this very well…" He went back to the calculator.

Peter was halfway through the second sheet when two other people entered the area. Steve barely noticed the black-haired woman; he was far more focused on the man behind her. He had a mechanical arm and his face was half-covered with a black cloth, but it was the eyes that drew Steve's attention the most.

He _knew_ those eyes.

"_Bucky_?" The name left his lips before he could stop it.

The Winter Soldier didn't look over, but the woman gave Steve a bored look.

"Are you almost done?" she asked the Mandarin.

"I almost have it," the Mandarin confirmed. He was looking down at Peter's work excitedly.

"I'm not yet done," Peter said, not looking up from his lap. "This is super complicated."

"You're trusting this child?" the woman asked scornfully.

The Mandarin looked at her balefully. "Tony Stark was much younger before he was recognized as the genius he was. Do not cast aside brilliance simply because the body is young."

"He's not even in puberty."

"I'm seventeen!" Peter said indignantly, looking up now to scowl at the woman.

"So he says." The woman didn't deign to look at Peter.

Steve swallowed thickly, eyes skimming over _Bucky's_ form. He'd recognize that body anywhere. He'd grown up with Bucky, and arm aside, he hadn't changed much in the intervening decades. The one thing Steve couldn't understand was why Bucky didn't react to his name or to Steve.

Didn't he know who Steve was?

Steve was about to try to speak again regardless of his better instincts warning him otherwise when a couple of the goons burst into nervous chatter. Whatever they said evidently alarmed the Mandarin and the woman enough that they stiffened.

"We are leaving," the Mandarin snapped, exiting Peter's cell and leaving him looking rather confusedly after him. "Lock the cells."

"I'll just wait here?" Peter said, tapping the pencil against his knee.

No one spoke to him. The Mandarin, the woman, and Bucky left, leaving only the HYDRA goons there to guard the cells.

"Oh, thank God," Peter said, sighing in relief. He threw the pencil out the cell and hit one goon directly in the mask. "My hand's cramping."

Steve didn't comment, not wanting the HYDRA goons to know that Peter had been lying the entire time. He wasn't sure what exactly had distracted the Mandarin and the woman, but he wouldn't risk them being alerted to Peter's lies and coming back.

From beside him he saw Natasha fiddling with something down her chest. She moved up to the door of the cell and gave Clint – who was on Steve's other side – an arched eyebrow.

Steve glanced over to see Clint dramatically throw himself to the ground with a pained cry. "My shoulder! Oh, the _pain_!"

It was so over-the-top Steve wasn't sure how the HYDRA goons even fell for it, but they startled and looked to Clint, giving Natasha enough time to pick her lock and open the door. The hinges creaking alerted the goons to what she was doing, but by then she was already in their faces.

Natasha punched one in the face and locked an arm around the second, throwing herself backwards and flipping over him, her feet kicking the third goon upside the chin. He fell backwards, colliding with the bars of Steve's cells. Before he could recover, Steve had him locked in an unrelenting chokehold.

The fourth and fifth goons were raising their guns threateningly, but were thrown backwards as the first goon was thrown into them by Natasha spinning around #2 – the one she still had in her grip – and then kicking #1 – the one she'd punched – in the head.

In a blur of moves Steve could barely follow, Natasha had #2 on the ground, falling to a crouch herself directly in front of the goon's head. She grabbed his gun and pistol-whipped #4 and #5 in the heads, knocking them out for the count.

Still choking his own goon, Steve relaxed his grip momentarily before slamming him back up against the metal bars, knocking him out. Once the goon had slumped in his hold, Steve let him drop.

"That was freaky," Peter said, blinking and swallowing. "And awesome."

"Thank you." Natasha pinched the keys from the guards' belts, flipping through them and unlocking Steve's cell. She gave him the second set of keys, moving over to unlock Clint's cell.

"Bit of overacting there?" she asked nonchalantly.

"You know me," Clint said, grinning. "Can never do things half-baked."

Steve had unlocked Bruce's cell now. "Bruce." He crouched besides the drugged doctor.

"Steve." Bruce squinted up at him, eyes still hazy. "You're glowing."

"That's nice." Steve kept his voice soothing. "Now why don't you climb on my back? I'll get you outta here."

Bruce went without any struggle onto Steve's back, cooperatively winding his arms around Steve's neck.

"We all good?" Natasha asked, stuffing the keys she had down the front of her uniform.

"Can I ask how you managed to unlock the door?" Peter asked.

Natasha smirked. "They didn't check my bra."

"Wimps," Clint said, grinning broadly. "You okay there, Steve?"

Steve nodded. "Good."

"I'd ask how Bruce is doing," Clint said, "but seeing as how he's as high as a kite right now it's probably no good."

"You're all glowing," Bruce said.

"High as a kite," Clint confirmed, nodding.

"Not to burst anyone's bubble," Peter said, "but how are we getting out of here? I don't know if you've noticed, but they took all our gear."

"I'm not leaving without my shield," Steve said.

"Might be a bit of a problem then, Captain," Natasha said, gesturing at Bruce.

There was an odd smell then, and Peter started, looking up with wide eyes.

"I see my help was unneeded," a German-accented voice said from above their heads. "You've all escaped. Super." The last word was in German. "Das macht mein Arbeit leichter."

Looking up, Steve was startled to see a blue-skinned being with a forked tail hanging onto the ceiling. The hands only had three fingers. But while Steve didn't recognize the being at all, it was the outfit that had him hoping. The insignia of the X-Men was on it.

"Nightcrawler at your service," the being said, flipping down to land lightly on the floor in front of them. "Can I help?"

"You're an X-Man," Steve said, inanely stating the obvious.

"Ja, Kaptan." Nightcrawler blinked his red eyes. "You haf seen me before."

"I'll take your word for it," Steve said. "What can you do?"

"I can take you to the plane," Nightcrawler said. "They haf yours, but ours is still safe."

"Who else is here?" Steve asked.

"Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, and Jean Grey." Nightcrawler grinned toothily at their surprised expressions.

"We'll talk later," Steve said, shifting Bruce to a more comfortable position. "How many can you take?"

"As many as I need, Kaptan," Nightcrawler said. "Shall we go?"

"I'm staying," Steve said, Bucky's face flashing through his mind.

"And I as well, Captain," Natasha said firmly.

Steve turned to her. "Black Widow—"

"The Winter Soldier and I have some unfinished business," Natasha said crisply. "Either way, I won't leave you here alone."

"The others then," Steve said, bending down to let Bruce off.

"If I may, Doctor," Nightcrawler said to a demure Bruce, "you seem very drugged."

Bruce squinted at Nightcrawler. "You're blue."

Nightcrawler seemed to take this blunt observation in stride. "I am."

Peter had by now tugged his mask back on and was standing next to Nightcrawler. "Does teleporting hurt?"

"You vill not notice a thing," Nightcrawler promised.

"Come back safe, you hear me?" Clint told Steve and Natasha. "No stupid sacrificial gestures." He looked at Steve as he said this last bit, and Steve simply inclined his head to acknowledge he'd heard it. He could make no promises.

"Achtung," Nightcrawler said, his eyes flicking between his passengers. A second later he was gone with that same strange smell Steve had noticed before.

"Brimstone," Natasha noted, her nose wrinkling slightly.

Steve said nothing, instead tugging on his cowl. The feel of it made it easier to slip into Captain America. Steve Rogers couldn't last much longer.

"We're staying close," he said.

"Might not be able to manage that," Natasha said evenly.

"No one's separating," Steve said. "We've already lost too many."

Natasha's lips thinned, and her voice was crisp as she said, "Understood."

Bending down to take a gun from one of the HYDRA's goons, Steve walked towards the exit. He nudged the door open, peering down the hall cautiously. Thankfully the lights were still working, not that that said much considering it was all torchlight.

"Clear." Steve moved forward, stepping lightly on the rough floor.

He could feel Natasha close behind him, and the knowledge was comforting. He wasn't alone here (_not like Tony had been_).

They came to another door, and here Steve stepped aside to let Natasha open it. She smirked wryly at him, pulling out a white card and swiping it in the scanner by the doorframe. There was a click as the door unlocked, and Steve pulled it open, blinking as he was met with fluorescent lights and gleaming white tile floors, though the walls were gray metal. It was a startling contrast to the tunnel they had just come from.

"Right, Captain," Natasha said from behind him.

Trusting in her judgment, Steve turned right, sticking close to the wall as he picked up his pace.

As he approached another hall that branched off from theirs, Steve heard something that sounded like footsteps. He readied his gun, prepared to shoot if he needed to.

"Don't shoot," a familiar voice growled. "Friendly fire ain't friendly."

Logan in Wolverine's costume rounded the corner, his face set in a disgruntled mask.

"Wolverine," Steve said, relieved.

"Fancy meeting you here." Logan's eyes flicked between Steve and Natasha. "Nightcrawler got the others?"

"Yes," Steve said.

"Then what are you still doing here?"

Steve's voice stuck in his throat. How could he begin to explain that his old friend was here? That he was _alive_?

"The Winter Soldier," Natasha said calmly from behind him. "We need to bring him in."

Logan's lips curled. "Personal?"

This Steve could answer. "Yes."

"Better hurry then." Logan twisted round to walk in the direction Steve and Natasha had been going. "We're on the clock."

Steve picked up his pace to keep up with Logan's. "What do you mean?"

"Stark's AI's got the entire base ready to blow in twenty-five."

Steve's heartbeat picked up. "Black Widow—"

"I'll get our supplies," Natasha said. "Do you have a radio to JARVIS, Wolverine?"

"Got an extra two." Logan reached into a small pouch he had on his waist and took out two earpieces.

Steve put his in. "JARVIS?"

"_It is good to hear from you, Captain._" JARVIS's English accent was unusually crisp. "_I will direct Black Widow to where your weapons have been stored._"

Steve gave Natasha a nod as she slipped away from them, running down the hallway to their left. "And Bucky? The Winter Soldier? Can you tell me where he is?"

"_I cannot tell you his exact location, but most personnel are one level above you. Wolverine can lead you to the access point._"

"No stairs, no elevators," Logan said, grunting in disgust. "Goddamn _ladders_."

Steve had no comment on the matter. He followed Logan to where the so-called ladders were.

"They watch a lot of _Star Trek_, don't they," Steve said once he saw the ladders, conveniently located in an access shaft.

"Don't ask me." Logan stepped to the side to let Steve up. "Upper levels are where most the goons are."

"Gotcha."

Steve took less than a minute to reach the next level and jumped out of the access shaft, pulling out his gun as he landed lightly on his feet. Logan joined him seconds later, coming up behind him as Steve double-checked that his gun's safety was on.

"Follow me," Logan said. "I'll betcha your guy's where Cyclops and Jean are."

The floor they were on was so similar to the base Steve had invaded back during World War II that he kept being hit by nostalgia whenever Logan ducked down a different hall or the wall curved so they were running at an angle.

Their speed was such that any goons they ran past had no time to react to their presence before they were gone.

The floor shook beneath their feet, startling Steve into saying, "JARVIS?"

"_Countdown is still eighteen minutes, Captain._"

"Jean," Logan grunted. "I bet she's pissed."

Steve didn't ask why; this wasn't the time to do so.

They were approaching a doorway to their left when someone stumbled out. Steve's heart stuttered when he recognized Bucky.

"Bucky!"

Bucky froze, glancing back to Steve and Logan. There was no recognition in his face, and he sprinted away a second later.

"Damn it!" Steve took off after him, only vaguely aware that Logan wasn't following.

Bucky wasn't faster than him, but he definitely knew the base better than Steve. He slipped down a hall and was down a ladder before Steve could realize where he'd gone. Steve took hold of the sides and slid down, aware of the air whistling past his ears dangerously quickly.

Managing to slow his speed down before reaching the bottom of the shaft, Steve jumped off the ladder and into a dead sprint after Bucky. They were in what looked to be the bowels of the base. Heating and cooling systems and other strange machines filled the entire area. There were also catwalks hanging from the ceiling with metal staircases leading up to them.

Steve tried calling again. "Bucky!"

There was no response from the other, and Steve had to duck under a metal beam as he squeezed between chugging machines that were glistening with moisture.

"_Your current location is where the base will combust,_" JARVIS said in his ear, his voice rather crackly with static.

"Don't have much choice here." Steve saw Bucky escaping through a gigantic square frame and the metal door above it begin to slide down. Putting on another burst of speed, Steve dove, sliding forward on his stomach and emerging on the other side seconds before the door slammed shut.

Scrambling to his feet, Steve pelted down the hall they were now in. "_Bucky_!"

"_Thirteen minutes, Captain_."

"I know!" Steve nearly slammed into the wall as Bucky took a sharp left. He pushed off with his hands, pumping his arms to regain his speed.

He ran past an open doorway when an explosion rocked him off his feet, throwing him into the wall on his right. Dazed, Steve scrambled to get to his feet, looking up in dismay to find Bucky slip through another door.

"What was that?" Steve pushed himself to his feet.

"_Uncertain, Captain. Cameras are distressingly sparse down there._"

Steve opened the door to find himself back in the room from earlier. He almost groaned in dismay when he noticed that he couldn't see Bucky anywhere.

Warily stepping into the room, he let the door fall shut behind him.

"_Ten minutes._"

Steve said nothing in response to the warning, instead doing a slow 360, his ears pricked for any sound that would tell him where Bucky was hiding. Unfortunately, the hissing and clattering of metal popping drowned out any noise Bucky would have made.

Steve slipped between a giant boiler and something that looked like a weird cooler when he heard a loud clattering noise from above his head. He looked up just in time to be hit in the face by Bucky's feet as he swung down from a catwalk.

Stumbling back into the heater, Steve dropped in time to avoid Bucky's punch. He heard the other's knuckles hit the heater, but paid no mind to it, sweeping Bucky's legs out from under him.

Bucky hit the floor hard, and Steve jumped on top, pinning him. "_Bucky—_" Steve grunted in pain as Bucky head-butted him. "It's me."

There was no response from his old friend, but Steve could make no further ventures to get through to him. The sound of an explosion shattered the air and Steve was only vaguely aware that something else had detonated directly next to him, propelling him off Bucky and across the confined space.

Steve hit something hard, blinking stars out of his sight as he tried to see what had happened.

There was nothing but white steam obscuring his sight, but Steve swore he saw something black and red drop from the ceiling to the floor.

Faint grunts of effort sounded from the steam, and then Bucky was thrown in Steve's direction. He flipped through the air, landing neatly on his hands and legs. He ignored Steve, instead facing the steam where Natasha stepped out, shaking her hair out of her face.

"Remember me, James?" she asked calmly, her green eyes studying Bucky. "It's been a while."

Now Bucky spoke. "Natasha."

"So you do remember me." Natasha smiled. "I wasn't sure. But do you remember who always won our little sparring matches?"

"I've gotten better."

Natasha's smile turned sly. "Have you really? Shall we see?"

"_Five minutes,_" JARVIS warned.

Steve had no breath to say anything. All his focus was on Natasha and Bucky and how they were just _dancing_ around each other. Natasha's fighting style had always been sinuous and smooth, consisting primarily of using her opponents' strength against them. Bucky seemed to be more of a head-on fighter, primarily brute force with some sneaky moves thrown in.

And it was painfully clear who had the upper hand.

Both used their surroundings to maximum effect, but it was Natasha who got the drop on Bucky first and threw him to the floor with her infamous "thighs of death." She grabbed hold of his hair, slamming his head into the floor once for good measure.

Bucky fell still, lax beneath Natasha's weight. She exhaled, brushing a hand across her face to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She looked at Steve, eyebrow raised. "You good, Captain?"

Steve nodded, pushing himself to a sitting position. "Yeah."

"_Two minutes,_" JARVIS said.

"We can't get out of here in two minutes," Steve said, sliding over to Natasha.

"Don't have to." Natasha was smirking, looking at something at Steve's side.

"Hallo," Nightcrawler said, resting a hand on Steve's shoulder. "I think we should go, ja?"

Steve saw Nightcrawler put a hand on Natasha's shoulder before he felt like he was being squashed into something dark; then he found himself inside what could only be the X-Men's jet.

"Just in time," Scott said from the front, flicking the switches above his head before resting both hands on the joystick. "JARVIS—"

"_Thirty seconds,_" JARVIS said from the speakers and in Steve's earpiece. Steve pulled the cowl down, feeling the cool air-conditioning of the jet hit his sweaty hair. The machine room had been far hotter than he'd realized.

"We're good," Ororo said, sitting next to Scott. "Take us up."

Steve could feel the jet vibrate beneath his feet as it began accelerating, yet he barely noticed as the jet's wheels left the ground to become airborne. Tony would have something to say about that.

He felt sick at the thought of Tony. Now that the danger was over and he was out of HYDRA's base, the emotions he had pushed aside earlier were coming back with a vengeance.

"Sit down before you fall, Steve." Natasha's voice was worried, her hand on his elbow as she guided him backwards to a seat.

After a few seconds, Steve felt his shield being nudged against his shin. He looked up to see Natasha smiling softly at him.

"I did manage to get it," she said.

"Thanks," Steve croaked, his fingers going for the metal. The familiar feel of it soothed him a little. He saw Nightcrawler move behind him, probably to sit in the back.

"That was super intense," Peter said from the other side of the cabin. Clint and Bruce were sitting next to him, though Bruce was unconscious, head lying on Clint's uninjured shoulder. "You guys really cut it close."

"Speaking of cutting it close," Clint said, "what was that back there with the math?"

Peter shrugged, his mask hiding whatever expression he was making. He did sound amused. "I just put together a bunch of numbers and letters. Most of it was bio-chem stuff with a little bit of physics. Looks legit enough to a guy who doesn't know anything about science."

Jean stepped into view, and Steve noticed Bucky lying on the floor behind her. "He's not going to wake up until we get back," she said, buckling into a seat behind Scott and Ororo. Logan stood next to her, arms folded across his face and a black scowl on his face. He had soot on his cheek.

"How did you find us?" Natasha asked.

"The professor," Scott said.

"It was actually Tony," Ororo said.

"He went off grid," Logan said, looking at Steve. "Couldn't find him at all, and the professor couldn't reach you. Figured we should come check it out."

Steve swallowed thickly, simultaneously relieved and dismayed. "Why? There's nothing in it for you."

Logan snorted. "Stark's one of us. Might be an Avenger, but he's also a mutant."

"We don't leave our men behind," Scott said.

"He's not an X-Man."

"Isn't he?" Logan lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. "Good as, just a different team and uniform."

They were all speaking about Tony as if he was still alive. "He's…he's not…" Steve took a ragged breath. "He's dead." Speaking the words had his stomach twisting into even more knots. "Tony's dead."

"No." Jean's words were calm. "He's not. The Mandarin lied. He doesn't know where Tony _is_, but he knows Tony's not dead. Something went wrong when he tried to kill him."

Steve blinked, painful hope rising within him. "He…he is?"

"I wouldn't lie, Steve." Jean gave him a sympathetic smile. "But wherever Tony is, he's not on Earth."

This bit of news had Steve struggling to focus and figure out where Tony could _be_. The only thing that struck him was that they needed to go to Reed. "We need to call Reed."

"Damn quantum physics," Peter said. "I guess this means it's Bifrost related?"

"_Dr. Richards has been alerted,_" JARVIS said. "_He seemed most exuberant._"

"I almost get why Tony doesn't much like the guy," Clint said.

Huffing out a half-hysterical laugh, Steve thumped his head back against the headrest, closing his eyes as utter relief swept through him.

Tony wasn't dead.

* * *

They dropped Bucky's unconscious body off on the Helicarrier, Fury giving Steve a despairing look.

"This is rather unexpected," Fury said. "And Stark?"

"Working on that," Steve said, glad his voice was even.

"I see." Fury gave Steve an inscrutable look. "Well, then, don't be a stranger, Captain. We'll keep him"—he nodded to Bucky—"in good condition."

"Preferably without any access to anything he can use to escape," Natasha said. "Treat him as you would me."

"Oh dear," Coulson said, frowning. "That rather complicates things."

They left S.H.I.E.L.D. to figure out how to contain a mercenary with Black Widow's skill level. The X-Men dropped them off at Baxter Building, though Jean and Logan joined them while Scott flew the others back.

"This concerns us as well," Jean explained before anyone could ask why.

"Can always use a nose," was Logan's brisk explanation.

The first point of order once they were in Baxter Building was to get Bruce to a bed so he could sleep off the rest of the drugs he'd been given; Ben went with him to be sure he'd be okay. Then they could do their best to explain things to Reed.

"You don't know what happened?" Reed asked, frowning in displeasure. "Look, I'm good, but even I can't work off of no data."

"He had ten rings," Jean said, reaching for her pouch and handing it over to Reed. "I took them off his fingers."

"You managed that?" Clint asked, letting Sue tut over his shoulder.

"He didn't have much choice." Jean's smile was cold. She spoke to Reed again. "What I saw was that he attempted to kill Tony with magic, but something happened. There was light, and Tony was gone."

"Light," Reed repeated dubiously. "That's rather vague."

"Where's Jane?" Steve asked, unable to stop a note of desperation from creeping into his voice. "She can help, can't she?"

"I've already called her, Steve," Sue said, not looking away from applying ointment to Clint's wound – he'd refused to have it treated on the Helicarrier. "She's been a bit upset with the lack of progress."

"Scientists, I tell you," Johnny said.

"We're the ones who give you all the technology you're so fond of," Jane said pleasantly from the entry of the room. "Now that I'm here, I need details."

"Light," Reed said unhappily, looking up at the ceiling in dismay. "That's all they know. _Light_."

Jane seemed disconcerted. "Can I have it from the top?"

Jean explained it again. When she was done, Jane was frowning.

"Reed's right," she said finally. "That's too little data for us to work with. How do you know Tony's not on Earth and not dead?"

Steve was unable to keep from wincing, though thankfully nobody seemed to notice other than Natasha, who squeezed his arm comfortingly.

"We have a device that senses mutants across the planet," Jean said calmly. "And it doesn't pick Tony up anymore. There are only two options for that: he's dead or he's off-planet."

"And he's not dead because?"

"Because the magic the Mandarin used wasn't lethal by itself. He meant for it to drain Tony dry, but something interfered."

"He's got that energy in his body," Steve said, mouth dry. He swallowed as everyone looked at him. "It was the arc reactor; Extremis absorbed it. JARVIS has the details."

There was light dawning in Jane's and Reed's eyes.

"The arc reactor," Jane said slowly.

"It runs on vibranium," Reed said. "Just like the Bifrost. What if magic is the key?"

"English for us poor mortals," Johnny said, handing Sue a roll of bandages.

As Reed went over to a computer and began typing frantically into it, Jane began to explain, "We were stuck on a way to solidify vibranium, the material that makes up the Bifrost. Tony had a way to manufacture it, but we needed it to be solid to create the bridge. The problem was that we couldn't find anything that would work."

"But magic!" Reed exclaimed, eyes gleaming in that way Tony's did whenever he'd hit upon an exciting discovery. "It's energy of a sort, and mixing it with vibranium might give us the right combination."

"We don't have that kind of magic here," Jane said. "Other than those rings, I suppose." She gave the pouch Jean was again holding a dubious look. "I don't fancy using something we don't know how to use."

"We can learn," Reed said.

"We want to get Tony back quickly, don't we?" Sue asked sweetly.

"Yes, please," Steve blurted out.

"We'll need to contact Asgard," Jane said, frowning. "But _how_ is the question… It's not like they've got cell phone reception there."

"You've got the TV," Clint said, gesturing at the TV that was standing proudly in the middle of the room. It was tuned to what looked like a picture of a large banquet in a smaller house.

"It's just a window," Reed said.

"Windows go both ways, don't they?" Clint said as if it should be an obvious fact. "We can see them; who says Asgard can't see us?"

"They haven't." Jane was scowling at the TV. "We've been looking at the most _awful_ things, and no one's seen us!"

"By awful," Clint said, "do you mean porn?"

Neither Jane nor Reed deigned to respond to this.

"Then again…" Jane sounded considering now. "Maybe we haven't been looking at the right things?"

Reed was looking at her now. "What do you mean?"

"Thor told me of Heimdall; he sees everything." Jane looked up at the ceiling. "Maybe it's as simple as calling out for him?"

"Impossible." Reed sounded disbelieving.

"The only way to find out is to try it." Jane was looking around her now. "We need to get our things together."

"So, when?" Steve asked, anxiety gnawing at the pit of his stomach. The possibility that they were only hours away from getting Tony back was nerve-wracking.

Jane gnawed at her lip, tapping her fingers against her elbow as she folded her arms. "I don't think we can manage it today," she said slowly, regretfully. "We weren't expecting something like this, and our stuff is all over the place." She gestured at the mess surrounding them. "We need to make sure we have everything, and that's going to take several hours." It was already getting dark outside.

"Then tomorrow morning," Sue said, packing up the first aid kit. "You can stay here for the night. Bruce needs time to recover anyway."

"Logan and I need to contact the professor before we can leave," Jean said.

"I'd offer a phone, but you probably already have one." Sue gave her a wry smile. "I can at least show you to your rooms. Natasha, that means you, too. We don't have that many."

"I'll be with Bruce," Steve said.

"You're stuck with me, squirt," Clint said to Peter.

"I don't mind." Peter shrugged.

"I'm not rooming with hothead," Logan said.

"That's fine," Johnny said, wrinkling his nose. "I don't wanna room with a drunk."

Logan eyed him menacingly. "You wanna say that again?"

Barely noticing Sue's resigned sigh at her brother's antics, Steve's eyes were fixed on Jane and Reed as they moved around the room, arguing about what they needed to take to Asgard and what definitely didn't need to go.

Tomorrow morning was too far away…

* * *

It was dark, and it was cold. He couldn't breathe; he couldn't move. Somewhere there was dripping, and it was slowly driving him mad.

Then there was _light_. He reached out for it, fingers coming to rest against red and gold metal and against a blue circle of light. He looked up to meet an imposing blank golden mask, but he felt no fear at the sight. Instead there was only a deep calm.

He moved to flatten his hand against the light, only to have the suit shatter into a million pieces beneath his fingers.

_"He's dead."_

_Tony!_

Steve jolted awake, breathing heavily and his entire body drenched with cold sweat. The nightmare held him tight in its grip, and he could only think about how Tony was _gone_. Not dead – thankfully not _dead_ – but _gone_ nonetheless. He was somewhere Steve couldn't reach him easily, and that just made him _ache_.

Turning to look at the clock, Steve was dismayed to find it was only two. He tucked his head down, squeezing his eyes shut as he focused on calming down.

He wasn't very successful, so Steve got up to sit by the window. Pushing the curtains aside to let the moonlight in, he pressed his back against the cool glass as he slid down to sit. He curled his knees up to his chest, hugging them tightly to himself.

Tony being gone like this wouldn't have hit him so hard – _probably_ – if he hadn't just gotten him _back_. Steve had almost lost him a little while ago, and this…this so close on the heels of that was really fraying his nerves.

Burying his face in his knees, Steve focused on the last night he'd spent with Tony. It had been warm and loving; it was exactly what he needed to calm himself down.

Up until the point it hit him like a sledgehammer that they had no idea where Tony was.

Pressing his lips together tightly, Steve brought his head back and rested it against the glass. He focused on breathing – just _breathing_ – and he almost didn't notice when Bruce stirred.

Steve didn't move; Bruce had woken up earlier but gone right back to sleep. Now Bruce actually sat up, frowning slightly as he looked over at Steve huddling there, curled up like a small child.

Steve didn't budge, not even when Bruce got out of bed to slowly walk over and sit down next to him. Bruce mirrored his pose, sighing lightly as he rested his head against the glass.

"I'm sorry," he said finally, softly.

"For what?" Steve asked dully, not looking over. "Tony's not dead."

"He's not?" The surprise in Bruce's tone reminded Steve that the other man had been unconscious the entire time and had only heard that Tony was dead before he'd been drugged again.

"No." Steve sighed softly. "But he's not here. We're going to Asgard tomorrow."

"Oh." Bruce shifted so his knees were slightly further out from his chest. His hands lay at his sides. "I…don't think I should come." The words were heavy with regret. "Don't know how the other guy might react to that kind of travel. Especially since it's not with the bridge…"

Hulk hadn't reacted well at all the last time they'd done anything related to the Tesseract. But to be fair, that had been with Loki around.

"I understand," Steve said.

"So if he's not dead," Bruce said slowly, "then he's in Asgard?"

"No." Though Steve wasn't sure. Something just told him that if Tony was in Asgard, he would've come back by now. "But they can help us. Reed and Jane figured out how to fix the Bifrost."

"Without Tony?" Bruce sounded mildly surprised. "He's not going to like that."

Steve chuckled weakly. "Actually, it's because of Tony they even figured it out. The Mandarin used magic to try and kill him; interfered with the vibranium in his body, I guess."

"Talk about luck," Bruce said.

"If you can call it that."

"He's not dead."

"True." Steve took a ragged breath.

They sat in silence for a while.

Finally, Bruce stirred again. "Did you have a nightmare?" he asked quietly.

Steve shrugged noncommittally.

Bruce rested a hand on Steve's shoulder, squeezing. "It'll be all right. Tony's come this far. This isn't going to kill him."

"How do you know?" Steve surprised himself with the question. "This could be it. The last thing until his luck's gone and he's dead."

"Tony's resourceful." Bruce was calm. "He didn't die in Afghanistan even though he honestly _should_ have. He had absolutely nothing other than his brains at that point, and that's what he used to get out. Now? He's…he's happy, Steve. He's not going to just lie down and let himself be killed. This is going to sound awful, but"—he laughed—"he's like a tick, all right. Sticks to you and refuses to let go; doesn't die easily either. Only Tony doesn't suck you dry…" He drifted off into thoughtful silence.

"Pepper would disagree with you there," Steve said dryly.

"I don't think so." Bruce smiled ruminatively. "She likes to say that Tony's too much, but she likes it. That's their relationship."

Steve was silent for a few minutes. "Not a tick," he said. "He's just Tony Stark."

"Sounds about right." Bruce extended his arm, wrapping it around Steve's shoulders to tug him in.

And Steve went, resting his head on Bruce's shoulder.

In about half an hour Bruce's breathing evened out into the steady rhythm of sleep. But Steve remained wide awake, the nightmare prickling at his senses.

_Tomorrow…_

* * *

It was eight the next morning when they all convened on the very top of Baxter Building. Jane and Reed had a couple of large suitcases with them, but that was about it. They'd be going, and so would Steve, Jean, and Logan, but everyone else would remain on Earth.

"I expect souvenirs," Clint said loftily.

Steve managed to dredge up a small smile, but he spoke to Natasha. "You're in charge while I'm gone."

Natasha nodded. "Good luck, Steve."

"None of this actually involves quantum physics, right?" Peter asked, gesturing at the suitcases. "Or reversing the polarity?"

Reed frowned. "No. Where would you get that idea from?"

"No reason." Peter shrugged. "Just wondering."

Clint snorted loudly, but said nothing to elaborate on the joke.

"I'd step back now," Jane said, "unless you're coming with. I'm not exactly sure what this is going to involve, but better safe than sorry."

The others obligingly huddled against the wall near the door to the roof.

Taking a breath, Jane turned her face to the skies. "Heimdall, I'm not sure if you can hear me, but if you can, please give us a lift to Asgard. We've figured out how you can rebuild the Bifrost, and we also need help. Tony Stark is missing, and we believe that he's somewhere else on Yggdrasil."

Steve didn't know what he was expecting, but he was still disappointed when absolutely nothing happened within the next five minutes.

Jane didn't look worried. "They're using the Tesseract. It's going to take time."

Five minutes stretched into ten, and Steve fidgeted on his feet, fingers digging into the straps of his shield.

He kept his head craned back, eyes fixed on the blue sky. Finally, several minutes later, unable to bear the fact that nothing was happening, he let out a low word: "Please."

Nothing happened, and Steve had to choke down the awful feeling of fear and disappointment. If Jane was incorrect – if Heimdall couldn't see them – then Steve had no idea where they'd go from here.

He dropped his eyes from the sky, only to widen them when he saw the blue light flickering in the middle of the air. It seemed to shrink in on itself for a few seconds before exploding out with a ring of energy.

Steve braced himself, exhaling in relief when he saw the blue shape of the Tesseract being placed at the feet of Thor. "Thor." He sounded as relieved as he felt.

"Heimdall received your summons," Thor said, looking at them all. "Is Anthony indeed missing?"

"Yes," Steve said. "He is."

"Heimdall is even now searching for him," Thor said. "But it is inadvisable for us to use the Tesseract in search for Anthony."

"We can fix the Bifrost," Jane said. "We figured it out, Thor."

Thor's eyes were soft as he looked upon her. "This is excellent news, Jane. We shall leave now if you are prepared."

"We are."

Hefting the Tesseract up, Thor stepped over to them, placing it in the middle of them. "I have not yet used the Tesseract for such a large group." He was frowning.

"Can I?" Reed asked, looking down at the cube with a gleam in his eyes.

"Actually," Bruce said, "let me. I had a hand in designing that case."

Another ten minutes and they were ready to leave. A circle had been outlined around them, Thor providing the Asgardian runes required to limit the energy of the Tesseract. And with a twist of the case, they were gone.

It was like a vortex. Steve could only see blue around him and the vague outlines of the others that were traveling with him. Then they were landing abruptly on a rainbow-colored stretch of floor that was hanging suspended in what seemed to be space.

"Oh wow…" Jane's words were awed.

"It is beautiful, is it not?" Thor sounded proud.

Steve wasn't looking at what they were. He was staring at the tall man with gold eyes in golden armor who was looking at him with a serene expression.

"Ah." Thor had noticed his preoccupation. "This is Heimdall. He heard your summons, Jane."

"I see all," Heimdall said in a deep voice. "Though my sight is now restricted." He looked off to the side, where Steve could see where the bridge had been broken. On the other side of the gap was what looked like an observatory made entirely of gold.

"What about Tony?" Steve asked, looking back at Heimdall. "Can you find him?"

"There are nine realms, Captain. Your friend could be on any of them. But peace, for I am looking."

Swallowing, Steve nodded.

"Vibranium and magic," Jane was saying to Thor. "Tony found out it was vibranium, but we couldn't figure out that we needed magic until he disappeared."

"Do you have this vibranium?" Thor asked.

Jane held up what looked like a small black USB. "JARVIS gave this to me. It's got instructions on how to make vibranium. We couldn't bring the materials ourselves, but you made it once before so you probably have it anyway."

"The Bifrost has been here for millennia," Heimdall said. "The machine that built it has long since been taken apart, but the pieces we still have. They will need to be reassembled once again. This is no simple task."

"How long?" Reed asked.

"Two days."

Steve swallowed thickly at the announcement. Two days wasn't too bad.

"Two days in this eyesore of a place?" Logan didn't sound at all pleased. "Someone kill me."

"That can be arranged," Thor said.

"No one's killing anybody," Jane said sharply, her face fierce enough that Thor bowed his head.

"Logan can't be killed," Jean said, amused. "Only thing you can do is get him mad."

"Wanna try it?" Logan said.

Steve dropped his chin to his chest, shoulders shaking in barely suppressed giggles. He was really losing it.

_Two days…_

* * *

Tony wasn't exactly claustrophobic. Come on, he flew around in an enclosed suit of armor. He couldn't _be_ claustrophobic. That said, he was generally uncomfortable in small places that he couldn't actually get out of (call it a remnant of Afghanistan if you will).

And being stuck under a mountain was something he couldn't get out of. Not easily at any rate.

Tony hadn't been crushed when the mountain crumbled. He'd formed a mental shield around him that stopped that from happening. The problem was that it was pitch black except for the lights on his armor. Air wasn't much of a problem because of the little oxygen that still remained inside this rubble, the rebreather built into his suit, and the oxygen also stored in his suit. That meant he had several hours to figure out what to do next. Considering he was currently buried alive, his first priority would be digging his way out.

His sensors didn't say anything about the monster being alive, so that at least was a good thing. The only thing, really, because Tony had yet to figure out how the hell he was going to get out of this.

He had an excellent mental map so he knew exactly where the exit had been. His sensors also told him where airflow was closest, and it definitely wasn't above him (because mountain) or behind him (because mountain), so he had to go forward.

Squinting ahead, Tony kept his focus on the mental shield, groaning as he felt a soft twinge in his temples. He was probably going to have a hell of a headache by the time he managed to get out (_don't think 'if,' don't think 'if'_).

Crawling forward as best as he could given his cramped surroundings, Tony began to move aside rocks with his telekinesis, wincing whenever he dislodged something that seemed to threaten to bury him _again_. Not wanting that to happen, he had his HUD give him a 3-D render of everything his sensors could pick up.

With that done, he picked his way out carefully, forced to use only his telekinesis given that he didn't want to shoot a repulsor with his mental shield up and risk it rebounding.

It was thirty minutes of painstaking work before he hit something that wasn't rock. It was a leg.

Tony wanted to cry. Moving around this thing wouldn't be easy.

But it was only the leg. The rest of the body was more to his right. He could do this.

_Think of Steve…_

Focused on the feel of the ring resting against his sternum, Tony turned as much as he could to his left. He was now in a tunnel of his own making; he'd left the little hollow he'd originally created behind.

One hour later and Tony's right temple pulsed steadily with pain. He breathed out sharply, squeezing his eyes shut as he used Extremis to access the morphine injections his suit had stored for situations like this. It was a small dose; he couldn't afford more and have his brain inhibited.

Tony waited for the pain to become blunter, the sign that the morphine was working. Then he took a lungful of stale, recycled air and pressed onward.

Thirty minutes later and either the morphine had already worn off or his headache was worsening. Tony knew which one was more likely, but he didn't dare chance another injection.

"Come on, Stark," he muttered to himself, waving the lights in his fingers so he could get another look at his surroundings. Not much to see, really. "You can do this. Just like back home."

_Yeah, right…_

"Clint would so poke fun at you if he knew what the hell you were doing now. Buried alive? So last century, Stark. Now, being _shot_ is more like it. But, wait, you already did that, didn't you? And you didn't die then, so why would you die now? Being buried alive is a sad way to go…"

Continuing to mutter to himself, Tony managed to distract himself from his burgeoning headache, which had now blossomed to hammers banging away on the inside of his skull.

His 3-D render of his surroundings – updated with every foot he managed – showed that he was maybe ten feet away from freedom.

At five he could chance using his thrusters and blasting his way out.

"Just five feet. Barely Natasha's size. You can do this."

He could barely see for pain now. Whining softly, he discarded another rock, resting his head against an arm.

That was it. He couldn't…

Firing his thrusters, Tony gave one last push with his telekinesis. The rocks around him rumbled threateningly, but Tony was already moving and leaving them behind.

Within seconds he'd burst out of the rubble with an explosion of snow and rocks. Thrusters still firing, he spiraled up into the air, eyes watering with the pain of his headache.

Picking a random direction, he flew off, wanting to put as much distance between himself and that accursed mountain as he could.

It couldn't last. He was in far too much pain to keep the suit operating, and soon he began to lose altitude. He managed to soften his landing in time, but it still hurt to hit the ground.

Groaning, Tony flopped onto his back, lifting his faceplate and taking a deep gulp of freezing cold air (_so cold_). It helped a bit with his headache but not much.

Tony took several more gulps of fresh air before it got too cold and he had to close his faceplate. The temperature readings informed him that it was currently zero degrees, and Tony supposed that explained why his tongue felt rather stiff now.

It was dark out, indicating it was probably night here.

Tony really wanted to sleep, but sleeping while in so much pain might mean that his suit would retract and he'd be naked.

Sinking back into his mind, Tony reached into Extremis, sighing in relief when that didn't worsen his pain any. Then he installed a subroutine that would ensure his undersuit would stay on regardless of what would happen (essentially just a "keep at least one layer!" order since he was too exhausted for anything more complicated). Hopefully it'd work, but if it didn't, Tony figured he was screwed either way.

He had to keep breathing. And moving, too.

Flopping back onto his stomach, Tony pushed himself to his knees. He stayed there for a while, just breathing. He didn't really want to move, but he had no choice if he wanted to live. He really couldn't afford to stay still in the frigid cold and the blizzard surrounding him.

Stumbling to his feet, Tony began the painful task of trudging through the snow. There was no light, so he could keep his eyes open without any fear of light worsening his headache even more. He kept the HUD blank except for the night vision, relying on Extremis's link to the suit to keep the data feeding directly into his mind.

_"You'll stay safe, right?"_

_ Goddamn it, Steve, I'm **trying**. Can't expect more than that, right?_

He really wanted to go home…

Stumbling as a particularly fierce gust of wind caught him, Tony fell to his knees. He could rest right here for a bit…

There was a fierce roar in the distance. Extremis chimed in, giving him the stats for how far away the source of the sound was and how fast it was traveling.

"Can it be a fluffy polar bear this time?" Tony murmured, nearly slumping over. "Please?"

Another roar contested this statement.

"Damn it." Tony struggled to his feet, squinting into the darkness despite his night vision trying its best to compensate. There just wasn't enough heat for it to do much good.

Telekinesis was definitely not an option given how much his head was still hurting. But he still had power and could fly.

"Give me a map," he murmured, waiting for his HUD to pull up the map of the terrain. If anything, the amount of flying and traveling he'd been doing had given his suit an opportunity to create a rough draft of what the land looked like.

The crevasse he'd walked by earlier wasn't far off. Maybe…

Inhaling deeply, Tony readied himself.

It was five minutes before the beast revealed itself, its body a tiny speck in his night vision. It grew quickly, a testament to fast it was running.

When it came closer, Tony could tell that it was just like the one he'd faced while in the company of those blue giants.

"Fuck." Tony fired his thrusters and blasted off into the air, grimacing as a strong gust of wind hit him.

When the beast came close enough, Tony fired off a repulsor to get its attention before he set off towards the crevasse. His sensors told him the beast was following him, bellowing.

Man, he must have pissed it off earlier (that is, if it was the same one).

Tony drew to a stop directly before the crevasse, hovering there as the beast grew closer. "Come on," he urged softly. "Come to Papa…"

Just as the beast was about to jump on him, Tony darted backwards, directly over the crevasse. And then he was flying up out of the reach of the beast's claws as it _jumped_.

And, man, could it jump. It was practically across the entire crevasse before it fell, howling with rage (it certainly didn't sound scared).

Looking down at the black abyss of the crevasse, Tony hovered for several minutes more just to be sure. Then he was abruptly reminded of his dire situation by the pounding pain in his head and the HUD warning him of his current power levels (25%).

Flying back to solid ground, Tony landed roughly, falling flat on his face.

Just five minutes to rest…

* * *

Those two days on Asgard were some of the longest of Steve's life. It might've had something to do with the fact that he didn't sleep, too wracked with nerves to manage it. Jane and Reed were helping to rebuild the machine with other Asgardians. It was easy but tiring work, and Steve didn't spend his time there because he felt absolutely useless.

Jean and Logan wandered about Asgard, shown the sights by Thor's friends. Steve had been extended the same offer and had gone with them for about two hours before his black mood had thoroughly pissed Logan off and he'd skittered off back to his room.

Odin and Frigga didn't spend much time with them either, beyond welcoming them to Asgard and giving them rooms to spend the nights in.

That first night Jean had talked to him, coming into his room when his watch said it was midnight.

"You're not sleeping?" she asked quietly.

Steve gave her a tired smile. "I can't. It's all right; I can handle about five days with no sleep."

"It doesn't mean you should have to."

Simply offering a shrug, Steve returned to studying the view from his balcony. They'd all been put up in similar rooms, though he hadn't seen Jane or Reed return to theirs.

"He's going to be all right," Jean said. "I may not have known him as long as you did, but what I do know…Tony's resourceful. Wherever he is, he's made the best of it."

Steve managed a small smile, laughing shortly. "He'll probably be grinning and laughing when he sees us, asking what took us so long."

"Exactly." Jean gave him a bright smile. "Do you think you can sleep now?"

Looking down at his feet for a few seconds, Steve offered up a rueful smile. "Thanks, but no. It'll be fine. It's only one more day, right?"

Jean studied him for a long moment, her sharp eyes seeing far too much for Steve's comfort.

"I see," she said finally, softly. "I understand." She reached out to give him a reassuring squeeze on the arm. "I'll see you in the morning, Steve."

"Yeah."

The second day Heimdall reported that Tony was in Jotunheim, realm of the Frost Giants.

Thor's face turned dark upon receiving this news. "That is troubling. Jotunheim is most unkind to humans."

Steve felt panic twist his stomach, but since this had already been an ever present state since arriving in Asgard it barely registered. "What does that mean?"

"That we must hurry."

Thor wanted to talk to Loki, and Steve let him, But when Thor returned with news that Loki would be willing to help given certain terms, Steve had put his foot down.

"My brother could help," Thor said. "He is of Jotunheim."

"He was raised in Asgard, wasn't he?" Steve shook his head. "He can't help anymore than you, Thor. And I don't trust him."

Thor's face turned rueful. "I realize this, Steven. For your peace of mind – and I must admit, my own – we will do this without him."

The second night Logan came into Steve's room and stayed there the entire night, a silent sentinel.

The bridge still wasn't ready the morning of the third day, but Steve was there as they began the process of reforming it at noon. It was absolutely stunning, taking place in the observatory that he had seen when first arriving. It was thanks to Jean's telekinesis that they could even go there and begin the process of rebuilding.

Like the rest of the observatory, the machine was gold and inscribed with intricate Asgardian runes. It was enormous, taking up practically a third of the space in the observatory. The side facing the room and the large platform in the middle had a wheel that would turn the machine on. Thor stood by it, prepared to spin it the moment Jane gave the signal.

After giving a resolute nod, Jane waved at Thor. Thor grabbed hold of the wheel, pulling down with an almighty heave and stepping back as it took on a life of its own, spinning rapidly.

The peak of the machine began glowing in brilliant rainbow colors. It took several seconds before a stream of light burst out, touching the other side of the broken bridge.

They watched breathlessly as the bridge slowly rebuilt itself before their eyes.

It was over in ten minutes, maybe less. And when it was done it gleamed absolutely brilliantly, sparkling rainbow-colored lights. Tony would have found that hilarious.

Steve's throat felt thick, also a normal occurrence over the last two days. Tony had put in a lot of work to make this possible; he should've been here to watch it come to fruition.

"When can we go?" he asked, trying not to sound utterly desperate.

"Heimdall?" Thor looked at the tall god.

"The Bifrost has been rebuilt," Heimdall said. "I can see now. Anthony Stark resides on Jotunheim, but where exactly I cannot say. Something clouds him from my sight."

"The vibranium," Jane murmured, resigned.

"Can you send us there, Heimdall?" Thor asked. "Anthony has been there for four days."

Heimdall looked vaguely affronted. "I can."

"I'm going, too," Steve said.

Thor looked sharply at him. "Are you certain, Steven? Jotunheim is a land of ice and snow. With your history—"

"I'm going." Steve made certain to sound firm. "I can handle it." He tugged at his uniform, which he'd been wearing for the last several days. "This conserves heat."

"Jotunheim is far colder than Anthony would have prepared for."

"I'm still going."

"Logan and I will go as well," Jean said. "I can sense his mind, even if it won't be clear."

"I can smell 'im," Logan said.

"Cold and me don't really mix well," Reed said, making a face. "Sorry that I can't go."

"It is well, Reed." Thor smiled at Sif, who smiled back. "Sif will accompany us."

"We will leave within the hour," Sif said. "Preparations must be made, and clothes provided. Jotunheim is not kind to Midgardians."

Despite his desire to get going immediately, Steve didn't protest. The Asgardians knew far better than he when it came to Jotunheim's climate, and he did still have problems in cold weather, especially when snow was involved.

In an hour they were all bundled up in extremely warm clothing and provided with horses. Only Thor and Sif remained in their normal battle regalia, their Asgardian physique better able to handle Jotunheim's extreme cold. They did have brown cloaks to shield themselves from the wind, but that was the extent of their additional protection.

"Heimdall, open the Bifrost," Thor commanded, his horse stomping slightly on the floor.

If there was a response, Steve didn't hear it. He was staring straight ahead into empty space, the observatory turning away from Asgard. He did feel the bridge activate, taking them all into a vortex of rainbow-colored light and to Jotunheim.

* * *

Five minutes stretched into an hour, but eventually Tony managed to haul himself to his feet, shivering profusely as the cold settled into his joints despite the protection of his suit.

It seemed that as his energy drew low, the more he could feel the cold.

Maybe it was the energy in his body that had been keeping him warm all this time. And…what?…four days of this had definitely sapped that energy down to the point where it could no longer keep him warm.

Tony was definitely shivering enough for that made-up-on-the-fly hypothesis to hold some weight.

To keep himself warm (or warmer than freezing anyway), he kept walking. The blizzard had ended with the arrival of the "day," so he could at least see where he was going and didn't have to worry about falling over because of a particularly strong gust of wind.

At this point he'd take anything good, even if it was only the little things. (He could do that, Pepper!)

Still, it was so tiring to walk across ground where he could slip the moment he stepped wrong. The snow wasn't deep, but it was deep enough that he had to be careful or he'd be flat on his face in no time.

But it wasn't all bad. After some hours of walking, Tony stumbled upon the edge of a cliff. He stopped before he could go over it, but did stand close to the edge, breathless with awe. This was much more wondrous than what he had seen before with the crevasse.

"One does not simply walk into Mordor," he breathed, lifting the faceplate so he could get a proper look.

Splayed out before him was a huge mountain range. They were thousands of feet lower than where he stood, giving him an unparalleled view of what it must be like on top of Mt. Everest. There was snow on every peak, but there were spots where he could see gray rock underneath the white.

"Whew." Tony dropped to a sitting position, deciding that this was as good as any place to rest (if not better because of that incredible view). He brought the faceplate down, not wanting to lose anymore heat. His headache was still pounding away but not as badly as it had been the previous night.

He sat there for close to half an hour before he sensed it.

It was a humming other than his suit. And it was _loud_.

His head snapped up, whipping to the place he could sense it coming from. He couldn't see anything, but he could definitely sense it. There was nothing else technological around – of _course_ he'd sense the first thing that came!

"_Steve_." The word was a rasp.

Tony pushed himself to his feet, powering on his thrusters without a second thought. The humming was subsiding now, but it was still _there_.

"Don't go, don't go, don't go." He was pouring on the speed despite the warnings blaring across his HUD.

And yet it wasn't fast enough. The humming was gone a minute later; Tony wanted to cry.

Still, he had the rough idea of where it had come from. He kept on his path, dodging around mountains when he had to.

Cold crept through his chest and even Extremis was blaring warnings now. Tony ignored it all.

_Steve…_

He would've missed if he hadn't seen such a sight before: a perfect circle with Asgardian letters on the edges and practically no snow within it.

There was also no one there.

Tony restrained a sob as he practically crashed into the ground. He gasped for air, whimpering slightly as the cold spread through his extremities.

Crawling to the center of the circle, Tony collapsed face first. It took all his strength to roll over on his back, and then he couldn't move anymore.

He was so cold…

* * *

When the light cleared from his eyes, the first thing Steve saw was snow. The second thing he saw was snow, too. And then there were mountains. And everything was bluish-white and kind of dark. Then he saw Thor step forward, his cloak billowing in the freezing wind.

Steve shivered slightly, suddenly terribly glad of the clothes Thor and Sif had given him. His shield remained a comforting weight on his back, reminding him that he was still alive and not frozen in an ice block.

"What do you sense?" Thor asked Jean.

Jean frowned, pressing her fingers to her temples. She stood like that for several minutes, the furrow between her brows growing deeper as the seconds passed.

"Nothing," she said finally, letting her hands drop. "There are other beings – I sense their thoughts though I can't understand them – but I can't hear Tony."

"What does that mean?" Steve asked. He was too numb now to feel much panic.

Jean gave him a look, concern in her eyes. "He's weak."

"Anthony has spent four days here," Sif said. "It is likely he has encountered the Frost Giants."

"We shall speak with them," Thor said.

There was no other conversation. Steve could see Logan frowning, his nose twitching as if he was trying to catch Tony's scent but failing.

The horses were sure-footed, and they quickly covered the ground to their destination. Steve didn't see anything that would count as landmarks, but apparently Thor and Sif did.

As they continued onward, Steve hunched over more and more, unable to restrain his fear of the cold. He could tell that Jean was shooting him concerned looks – her telepathy doubtlessly telling her what was going on in his mind – but she said nothing. Probably because Steve was bound and determined to do this.

Tony needed him.

They eventually arrived at buildings that seemed to be made out of ice. Thor didn't go straight up to them, stopping a fair distance away but still within sight of the guard towers. Steve could see what looked to be blue people looking out at them.

It didn't take long before an entourage of the blue people met them, and Steve was surprised to note that they were _really_ blue. And had red eyes. Their skin was also inscribed with strange lines and lettering.

"We do not seek war," Thor said to the leader of the group.

The Frost Giant responded, but his language was one Steve couldn't understand at all. It sounded extremely harsh and full of clashing teeth.

Thor apparently understood what had been said. "We come in peace. We seek one of our own." There was another response and then Thor said, "He would not have looked like us. He is from Midgard and wears a suit of metal."

This garnered a reaction that wasn't at all positive. Steve could see that the Frost Giants were looking practically murderous now. The leader's words to Thor were laced with venom.

Thor was absolutely unruffled. "Then you have not seen a man in a suit of metal? At all?"

The leader growled out another answer, this one longer than the last.

Frowning now, Thor nodded. "I see. Then you do not know where he is now. I thank you for your time. Peace and be well."

Turning his horse around, Thor gestured briefly for the others to follow him. But then the leader spoke again, causing Thor to pause. When nothing more was said, Thor nodded at him and continued onward. Sif was first to follow him, and Steve was close on her horse's heels.

Glancing over his shoulder, Steve could see the Frost Giants glowering after them but making no move to follow.

"What happened?" Steve asked lowly.

"They saw Anthony," Thor said. "They had him in their grasp for several hours, believing him to be a Dwarf from Nidavellir because of his armor. Thinking him an enemy, they threw him into the arena." He smirked. "Anthony rather surprised them by escaping." He sobered abruptly. "They have not seen him since, although he told me that they sent a beast of theirs out to retrieve him. They do not know if he survived, but the beast has not returned."

"Then what?" Steve was unable to keep the distress from his voice. "We walk through the whole of Jotunheim?"

"Nay, that would be impossible." Thor looked troubled. "But we cannot simply leave. Jean, what do you sense?"

"I sensed them." Jean flicked her head back towards the direction of the Frost Giants. "But nothing else."

"I can't smell squat here other than ice and snow and death," Logan said, sniffing imperiously. "And my nose is freezing off."

"He did say that there was a disturbance the previous night," Thor said slowly. "A mountain crumbled. We should perhaps head there."

"Do you know where that is?" Steve asked.

Thor gestured to the front of him. "He told me it was in this direction. But it is a mountain; we cannot miss such a sight."

Huddling back into his clothes, Steve kept his chin up. He was thankful for his cowl, for it protected his ears and most of his face from the worst of the cold. He could hide the rest in his scarf.

They'd find Tony.

Or, he mused later, they'd find where he'd been. As Thor had said, they couldn't miss the sight of half a mountain in ruins, even with most of it covered in snow.

"Tony's under there?" Steve could barely get the words out.

Jean frowned, drawing her fingers to her temples. After a few moments she said, "I can't get anything."

Logan took a deep sniff of the air, promptly screwing his nose up afterward. "Something died here, but it wasn't Stark. Doesn't smell human."

The confirmation had Steve practically slumping over in relief. Only the cold kept him upright. "Then?"

"We'll ride on for a while yet," Sif said. "Circle around. Perhaps we'll see something else."

With no other plan, they did exactly that.

Eventually, Thor said, "We cannot stay the night, Steven. Jotunheim is unfriendly to humans in the day; the night is much more unforgiving."

"If we don't find him, can we come back tomorrow?" Steve wasn't about to give up.

"With every night, the chances of finding him alive decrease."

Steve blinked back tears. "We can't just _stop_."

"I know, Steven." Thor gave him a smile, though it seemed forced. "We have time yet."

"But only a few hours still," Sif warned.

"He was trying to comfort him!" Logan snapped at her, drawing an unimpressed look from her.

"It is not comfort if it is a lie," Sif said, arching an eyebrow.

"Sif," Thor said reprovingly.

Sif shot him a look. "I speak only the truth, Thor."

Steve spoke before anyone else could. "Can you just be quiet?"

Although they shot each other looks, they did fall silent.

The rest of the way was traveled in silence. They went a wide circle, going as far as they could until they had to loop back because it was getting dark.

Steve was shivering constantly now, but not just because of the cold. He rubbed his fingers together, massaging the base of his left ring finger. Tony hadn't been able to get him a ring, but that wasn't what Steve was thinking of. He was thinking about what would've happened later if things had gone differently.

They shouldn't have waited, but Pepper would've killed them if they'd had a shotgun wedding with absolutely no time to prepare.

Steve found it increasingly difficult to gather his thoughts, sluggish as they were. And it wasn't just because of grief. The cold was biting at him, threatening to send his body into unconsciousness to defend itself. He'd managed to stave it off with hope, but now with even that dwindling along with the light, Steve found he couldn't be bothered anymore.

"Steve." Jean's voice was sharp, snapping him out of the lethargy he'd fallen into. "Stay awake."

He grunted softly, blinking rapidly. The lack of sleep over the last three nights was also getting to him.

They were almost at the place where they had arrived, Thor explaining that it would be easier for him to use the runes already in place to return to Asgard.

Steve looked ahead, blinking in the gloom that was settling over the land. Then he blinked again, squinting as he thought he saw something on the ground.

Logan was sniffing the air. "Hang on…"

But Steve was already falling off his horse, almost slipping until his boots grabbed traction and he was sprinting to the circle.

Tony was lying there. Flat on his back and without his armor and without a blue light glowing in his chest. The undersuit was black against the stark white of his skin, a harsh contrast of colors.

"Tony." Steve didn't recognize his own voice as he collapsed to his knees besides Tony. "_Tony_."

Was he breathing? Steve couldn't tell. But Tony was too still to be okay.

Steve tried to check for breath, growling in frustration when his gloves got in the way. He tugged them off impatiently, brushing his fingers over Tony's blue lips – _blue_ – and then over his skin. It was too cold. Far too cold. And there was no _light_.

Pulling Tony into his lap, Steve curled over him, desperately trying to see if he was still alive. Please, God, let him live. It wouldn't be fair if he died because they had to look elsewhere and couldn't come straight back.

_Steve._

The voice wasn't his own, and Steve looked up to see Jean before him, face worried.

"We've got him," Jean said, but it wasn't to Steve. "Thor, take us back."

Since he wasn't needed, Steve returned his attention to Tony. _He was too still_.

He barely noticed when the Bifrost activated again, taking them all back to Asgard. He barely noticed when he wasn't cold anymore. In the normal light of Asgard it was all too easy to see how white Tony was and how blue his lips were. And how dark the center of his chest was without the familiar blue light.

Someone was tugging at him, trying to get his attention.

_Steve._ It was that voice again. _The doctors need to get to him. He's alive, okay? He's **alive**, but they need to do their work. Can you let him go?_

Steve blinked, dazed. _Was_ Tony still alive? It was difficult to tell, but maybe there was a faint rise and fall of his chest?

His grasp loosened slightly on Tony.

_That's it, Steve. Let him go. It'll be fine._

And Steve did, watching in a daze as Asgardian doctors swept Tony from him and bundled him up.

Someone was helping Steve to his feet now, talking in soothing tones that he wasn't registering. His focus was on Tony, who was now being spirited away over the bridge to Asgard.

Steve must've blanked out then, because the next thing he registered was sitting and staring at a closed wooden door. Jean was sitting next to him and Thor standing before him.

"Steve, are you with us?" Jane asked lowly.

Blinking in response, Steve found his voice wasn't quite working.

"I have spoken with the healers, Steven," Thor said, seeing that Steve was listening. "Anthony will be fine. He was cold and drained of energy, but these are things that can be rectified. You will see him shortly."

When? Steve wanted Tony.

"I know." Jean's voice was soothing and she was rubbing circles into Steve's back. "It's only a few more minutes. They just have to be sure that he's absolutely fine and there's no permanent damage from nearly freezing to death."

The reminder that Tony had almost died was enough to make Steve start shivering again, even though the air wasn't at all cold. He noticed he had a thick blanket around his shoulders and he was no longer in his uniform.

"Almost, Steve." Jean pulled the blanket more firmly over Steve's shoulders. "Can you ask again, Thor?"

Thor left then, but Steve wasn't sure where. He was just aware of that wooden door and the fact that Tony was behind it.

Why wasn't he _in_ there with him?

Then Thor was there again, and Jean pulled Steve to his feet, saying, "You can go in now, Steve."

The door was opening, and a woman in white robes stepped out, letting Steve by. He heard voices, but he didn't understand what was being said. His entire focus was on the bed in the room and who was lying in it. And the blue glow that was thankfully there.

He was up against the side of the bed now, and the blanket was falling to the floor. Steve desperately wanted to climb in there with Tony, and why couldn't he? The bed was big enough for two.

Making up his mind, Steve pulled back the blanket and slid in besides Tony, curling up against him. His skin was warm now, so different from how cold he had been before. _And the light_.

Shivering lightly, Steve wrapped his arms around Tony, tucking himself close. He pressed his face into the hollow of Tony's neck, the blue light of Tony's arc reactor – _former_ arc reactor – illuminating the inside of his eyelids and warming his chest as he pressed against it.

Slowly, by increments, the tension seeped out of Steve's muscles. He didn't even notice when he slipped into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

Warmth.

That was the first thing he noticed. It wasn't cold anymore.

The second thing he noticed was that there was no pain. At all. Even his head was good. His limbs were all in perfect working condition with no tingling or burning to signal that they were coming back to life after being frozen. Extremis was buzzing in his head and he could sense humming.

The third thing he noticed (and probably the first thing he _should_ have) was that someone was cuddling up to him. Or maybe not "cuddling" so much as borrowing directly into his body.

Something tickled his nose. Tony exhaled, shifting his face so he could clear his nostrils. Then, blinking blearily, he opened his eyes.

The decor of the room surprised him. It looked kind of old-fashioned even as it was richly decorated with elaborate tapestries, fur rugs, and a gigantic bed that he was in the middle of with whoever was snuggling him.

Who was actually Steve now that Tony got a better look at him. And he didn't know how he'd ever _not_ known it because Steve snuggled in a very specific way. His head was tucked right under Tony's chin and both arms were wrapped tightly around him, Tony's right arm lying over Steve and his left trapped between their bodies. Their legs were tangled and their bodies pressed tightly together.

Frowning, Tony tried to remember if he'd missed anything. The last thing he could remember was collapsing in the middle of a circle. There was nothing after that until waking up in a strange bed in a strange room.

Evidently, sometime in the middle something had happened. Something that involved Steve and strange rooms that Tony should be able to recognize (never mind he'd never seen this one before).

Sighing, Tony buried his nose in Steve's hair again, inhaling his scent. He'd missed it.

Tightening his arm around Steve, Tony didn't miss how he murmured softly before sighing and snuggling closer (if that was even possible). Checking to see that his ring was still around his neck, Tony closed his eyes.

He was still tired, and as warm as he was now, he couldn't resist the allure of sleep.

* * *

The next time he woke up, he could tell that Steve was awake. His breathing had shifted from the deep rhythm of sleeping to the shallower rhythm of consciousness, though it was still deep and even.

Steve didn't react as Tony shifted, arching his back and straightening his legs to work out the lethargy. After he stopped stretching, Tony returned to burrowing his nose in Steve's hair.

He almost missed it when Steve murmured, "You're awake."

Rather than move, Tony just gave a lazy, noncommittal hum.

"It's been a few days."

Now Tony frowned, trying to verify this with Extremis. Unfortunately, it seemed that its sense of time was a few days off because there was nothing here he could use to update it. "Didn't know that," he said eventually, turning his face so his cheek was resting in Steve's hair.

Steve's voice was subdued as he said, "I thought you were dead."

Tony felt very alive. "I'm not."

"You almost were." Steve was very quiet.

There was nothing he could say to that. Searching for a way to change the subject, Tony noticed that he was wearing dark red clothes with a fabric so soft it didn't feel real. That left him with the question as to how they'd gotten his undersuit off. "Where's my undersuit?"

Steve gave him a look that told Tony he knew what he was trying to do but was going to humor him anyway. "Your undersuit?"

"You know, it's black and tight…" Tony trailed off, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

Steve's face shut down, alarming Tony. What had he said?

"I don't know." Steve's tone was carefully even. "They must've gotten it off."

Tony turned his focus inward, checking to see if he could see if it was inside him. After a moment he felt the cloth slither over his skin; he retracted a second later. "That answers my question about that subroutine." If they'd put blankets over him, that might've fooled Extremis into thinking he had a layer on.

"What?"

"Where are we?" Tony asked instead of answering Steve's question.

Steve frowned slightly, but answered anyway. "Asgard."

"Oh." Tony gave the room another look, realizing it did look very Asgardian. "Figures. And where was I?"

"Jotunheim." Steve bit his lower lip. "Where Loki's from," he added lowly.

Tony wasn't too surprised at this bit of news. "That explains the unfriendly natives."

"They thought you were a Dwarf."

"Did they?" Tony wrinkled his nose. "I suppose to them I might've been one. They were awfully big."

Steve was smiling now. "It was your armor. The Dwarves build things, and the Frost Giants thought that was something they'd built."

"Is it an insult that they never considered a human as an option?" Tony mused.

Steve's smile was fond. "You're probably the only one who'd think something like that."

"Probably." Tony pulled away from Steve to sit up, pulling his shirt away so he could study the blue light in his chest.

Steve sat up as well, still keeping an arm looped around Tony's waist. "It was completely out." His voice was so quiet Tony almost missed it.

That explained why he'd been feeling so cold at the end. "I'm not surprised," he said, letting the shirt go.

Steve waited, saying nothing.

Tony took several breaths, staring ahead at the wall as he asked, "Can you explain what happened? From the top."

"Yeah." The word was quiet. "JARVIS alerted us the moment you were taken down. We didn't manage to get there until the next day, and Charles was the one who told us where you'd been taken to. We couldn't find the base, so I let them subdue us and take us in. Then…" His breath hitched slightly. "This guy called the Mandarin told us you were dead. He wanted information on the Bifrost, only none of us knew anything so Peter began making stuff up." He laughed. "It was brilliant. He stalled until the X-Men came. Natasha broke out first, and Nightcrawler got the others out. Natasha and I…we stayed."

Steve looked at Tony with bright eyes. "The Winter Soldier… He's _Bucky_, Tony."

Tony blinked. "Bucky? Your friend?"

"Yes." Steve swallowed. "I couldn't believe it. But…he didn't react. He remembered Natasha, but not me. He's with S.H.I.E.L.D. now." He wet his lips. "We managed to get out before the base blew up. Jean had managed to find out you weren't dead." His arm tightened around Tony. "We went to Reed and Jane."

"They managed to figure it out?" Tony groaned. "_Without_ me?"

Steve's lips quirked into a smile. "Actually, it was _because_ of you that they did. Jane thought your vibranium interfered with the Mandarin's magic enough so that you were transported elsewhere. She called Heimdall, and Thor came with the Tesseract. They rebuilt the Bifrost and we went to Jotunheim."

Steve bit his lip, looking away. "We couldn't find you," he continued softly. "Thor talked to the Frost Giants, but they didn't know where you were either. We kept searching…until we went back…" Steve was trembling now. "And you were there." His voice was so quiet. "You were so cold. And there was no light." He rested trembling fingers against Tony's chest. "I thought you were dead."

Tony half-turned, wrapping Steve in a tight embrace. He pressed his face into Steve's hair as it was returned, Steve burying his face in Tony's neck.

"I'm fine," Tony murmured. "You brought me back. I'm fine."

"You almost weren't." The words were muffled against his skin.

"But I _am_." Tony rocked them back and forth.

Steve's voice was thick. "I kept wondering if this was it. If this was the time you wouldn't come back."

Tony said nothing, his right hand moving in soothing circles over Steve's back. "I can't promise anything," he said finally.

There was no response, and Steve didn't move.

Sighing softly, Tony shifted both of them so that they were lying back on the very fluffy pillows the bed provided. He kept circling his hand over Steve's back, pressing his cheek into Steve's hair.

"I don't expect you to," Steve said eventually, almost inaudibly. "It was just…difficult."

The only response Tony could think of to say to that was trivializing, so he didn't bother at all.

But Steve didn't give him any chance to think of another response. "But what about you? What happened?"

"I… It was cold." Tony chuckled once humorlessly. "Thought I was in Antarctica at first, but there was nothing Extremis responded to. Then there were the giant blue people. Wasn't too pleased with their hospitality; they had lousy service. When I checked out"—Steve snorted—"I found a cave. Turned out to be something's home and it wasn't too pleased. I…uh…well, _it_ collapsed the mountain on me." Steve didn't stiffen or do anything else to signal that he'd heard.

"We saw it," Steve said when Tony didn't continue out of concern. "But Logan said he couldn't smell you, so we went on."

"_Logan_? He was there with you?"

"He and Jean. They said it concerned them, too."

"That makes no sense," Tony muttered.

"Said you were as good as an X-Man," Steve said.

"Well…that's…more than I expected." Tony didn't quite know what to say to that, so he continued his story. "Anyway, I managed to burrow my way out of the mountain. Then I was just walking. A giant monster wanted to attack me, but I dumped it down a crevasse. Kept walking again until I hit the entry to Mordor." He could see Steve giving a small smile (success!). "I took a short break. Then…I felt the Bifrost activate. But when I got there…there was no one."

"I'm sorry." The words were whispered.

Tony shrugged lightly. "You couldn't have known. You did show up in the end."

"Almost too late."

"Are you still hung up on that?"

"I'm not just going to let it _go_, Tony," Steve said snappishly. "You almost _died_."

"Because you did the smart thing and looked everywhere else. Statistically, it was the right thing."

"Wasn't very smart."

"Because you were dealing with me. I blow statistics out of the water."

Steve huffed out a small laugh. "Sounds about right."

"Speaking of numbers"—Tony dropped his voice to a murmur—"what do you say about taking a vacation here?"

Steve craned his head back to eye Tony strangely. "You're serious?"

"Yeah, come on. It's not like we've ever had one back on Earth. We deserve a break."

"I don't know…"

"Consider it an apology for not staying safe."

Steve was frowning now. "I don't see that you have anything to apologize for."

Tony shook his head. "Let's not squabble."

"I—"

"No squabbling." Tony pulled back so he could meet Steve's eyes comfortably. "We're vacationing here. I think they can put us up for about a month after I helped them rebuild the Bifrost."

Steve was giving him that soft grin Tony loved. "It was Reed and Jane."

"They wouldn't have managed it without this." Tony tapped the energy source in his chest. "Ergo, they owe me."

"We need to send a message back home."

"I'm sure Reed can. He's not one for staying somewhere without Sue."

"You've really planned this out." Steve sounded amused.

Tony raised an imperious eyebrow. "Don't I always?"

"There was that one time with Bruce—"

"It was a drunken bet. I thought we agreed not to talk about that."

"You weren't even drunk."

"I wonder how fast I would've flown if I had been," Tony mused.

"Let's not find out." Steve pressed closer, sliding up so that he could rest his forehead against Tony's. His fingers came up to fiddle with Tony's ring. "We should get married soon." His voice was quiet.

Tony looked at him intensely, but Steve didn't meet his eyes, instead looking at the ring. "We could do an Asgardian shotgun wedding."

Steve looked up at him now. "Are you serious? Pepper would kill us both."

"Yeah, you're right. So would Natasha. Let's do Vegas."

"We're doing a proper one," Steve said firmly. "When we get back."

Tony wisely decided to let it go (besides, a proper wedding sounded awesome). "Sounds good."

Steve grinned, eyes crinkling happily. "Great." He leaned in to draw Tony into a sweet close-mouthed kiss, his hand curling around Tony's neck and tangling in the hairs at his nape.

Wrapping his arms around Steve to pull him even closer, Tony eagerly reciprocated, opening his mouth and coaxing Steve's tongue into the proceedings. After a few seconds, Steve moaned. Tony hummed, pleased, pushing Steve on his back so he could roll on top.

Grinning into the kiss, Tony rolled his hips once, twice, eliciting another broken moan and a hitched breath from Steve as he broke the kiss to pant raggedly into Tony's mouth.

"_Tony_…" Steve's voice was husky.

Tony looked down at him innocently. "Yes, dear?"

Steve gave him a not very effective glare considering the heavy flush on his face. "If you don't finish what you started, this isn't going to be pretty."

"Temper, temper…" Tony grinned again, but stooped down to kiss Steve, wiggling a hand between their bodies to shove their pants down.

Steve groaned into his mouth, hips jerking into Tony's grip.

"One month," Tony whispered into Steve's mouth.

This glare was much fiercer. "Tony."

"On it."

They still had their issues to work through and things to take care of back on Earth, but for now… For now, Tony could put that behind him – could be something _else_. They could take this time for themselves; life had taken enough already.

* * *

On S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Helicarrier, Natasha stood outside the windows that looked into the medical bay. Nick Fury stood just behind her.

Natasha had an unhappy slant to her mouth, though only close friends would recognize it as such.

She knew the man lying in that room, though she had never suspected that he was James Barnes, Steve Rogers's childhood best friend. It was an unpleasant surprise, to say the least, because it complicated matters drastically. Natasha was used to making sacrifices, but Steve… Steve wasn't.

And to find his friend after so long? After thinking he was dead? And to learn that his friend didn't recognize him? Had no idea who he was? It must hurt.

There was no sign that the Winter Soldier remembered who he had been. Whether the memory loss was because of Bucky's fall from the train or because of HYDRA's influence was unclear, though Natasha suspected it was a mixture of both. Either way, it would be difficult to find out whether Bucky was still there inside the Winter Soldier.

But for Steve…for her friend…Natasha had to find out.

"We have him sedated," Fury told her, breaking the silence.

"I noticed." Natasha's response was dry, and she didn't look over at the director, though she could feel his eyes on her. "Has he regained consciousness at all?"

"Once." Fury's answer was calm. "He was rather violent, which is why he's now sedated."

Natasha said nothing. Jean, Logan, and Reed had returned from Asgard yesterday. They'd left her the message that Tony and Steve would be staying in Asgard for a month's vacation, leaving her in charge of the Avengers during their absence. Natasha privately thought the two deserved it after everything they'd been through the last couple months.

In any case, it gave her more time to figure out what to do with James.

"Wake him up," she said finally, looking at Fury.

Fury's face revealed nothing. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

For giving her a home – for giving her a _family_ – Natasha could do this for Steve. She could find out if his friend was still inside the cold killer HYDRA had created. Love was for children, but this was family. And she helped her family.

* * *

**Like I said, the series is _mostly_ finished. Obviously I'm going to deal with what happens to Bucky. But it's not going to be as long as previous stories have been. There'll also be some fun side stories set in this universe, namely this Tony meeting the comic versions from 616 and Ultimates! And for fun, this Tony also meeting ACTUAL MCU!Tony who isn't a mutant. So, yeah, I've got other things in store for this universe. What about you guys? What do you want to see happen?**

**On the list also include Steve's POV of the latter part of An Alternative State of Mentality, particularly the shooting, and the wedding since Steve and Tony are engaged. For the wedding I'm not sure if I do a sex scene... But that's something I'm going to be doing for sure.**

**Drop a note and let me know what you thought! And also go and give _digitalwave_ some love for the work she put in!**


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